Demon Division
by Scribbler
Summary: In a world where magic is commonplace, it's easy for Kurt Wagner to be brought in by the police division assigned to capture rogue demons. Convincing them he's human, however, is less easy. A plot to bring about the apocalypse doesn't help matters at all.
1. Pick Up

**Disclaimer - **While the universe is ours, the characters are not. Come to think of it, actually a hefty chunk of the universe isn't ours, either. Bugger.

**A/N - **While I wrote the first part of this, the rest is an interfic (a piece of fanfiction written piecemeal by several different writers). A lot of it was written back in early-to-mid 2004, but I found the old file sitting around and edited it into some sort of continuity to keep my eyes open on a babysit. It was either that, or watch the fifty-billionth repeat of _Ghost Chase_ on the Horror Channel. Naturally I chose the fic.

* * *

_**Demon Division**_

_(c) 2005,Scribbler, Weirdlet, InterNutter, StupidX, doughnatouk, Yma, andArachnaphiliac._

* * *

**1. Pick Up**

* * *

Officer Smith leaned backwards against the wall, gun held high in one hand, the other palm by her side and pressed to the brickwork. Her uniform was damp with sweat and clung in all the wrong places. Had her partner been here he probably would've made some chauvinistic comment or other - right before she slammed his teeth down his throat.

As it was, she was alone with only her gun for company, since that idiot, Alvers, was somewhere five floors down with a twisted ankle. She'd told him that the elevator, though not as glamorous, was definitely safer than thundering up ten flights of stairs like cops did in the movies, but had that rookie listened to her? Had he hell!

Tabby twisted so that she could call and be heard through the chipped apartment door without getting her face blown off. There was no evidence yet that the suspect within was armed, but you never could tell in cases like this. This side of town was notorious for that sort of thing. Just last week she'd apprehended a Golgothin whose very body was one big disgusting weapon, and then the week before it was that bloody Succubus. Led them a merry dance, that one, and once again Alvers had been a great asset - not!

"We know you're in there!" She chose not to mention she was alone, although the prospect of badmouthing her idiot partner, even to a felon, was tempting. "You might as well give it up now. We have you surrounded," she added as an afterthought.

There was the sound of movement from inside, and what sounded like furniture being turned over. Tabby swore under her breath.

The details on this one were sketchy, at best. All she knew for sure was that there were at least two people inside this room, one of whom she was after, the other... she didn't really know much about. NYPD had received a desperate call from a neighbour just short of an hour ago, claiming that something distinctly unnatural had been spotted in the upstairs apartment. It'd taken two more reports of raised voices and sounds of a scuffle before the police hierarchy finally agreed to dispatch her and Alvers to deal with it.

Those higher up in the pecking order didn't like the Demon Division, as a rule, despite their usefulness in situations like these. The Chief of Police was likely to let Imps chew his face right off before he even admitted to their existence, and had dismissed the reams of supernatural sightings as flukes and college students for years, until his own superior demanded he at least make the effort in the eyes of the public and employ a set of officers to handle the cases he and his boys couldn't even explain, let alone solve.

Something thudded against the other side of the door, causing bits of whitewash to flake off. One of the three metal digits came loose on one side with a squeak, and it lurched, swinging upside down on the other nail. The sudden movement caught Tabby's eye, and her trigger-finger twitched involuntarily as she looked up and read off the new number.

666.

_Figures_.

More scuffling, and the jingle of breaking glass. An unexpected scream rent the air, but was abruptly cut off.

_Right, that's it. _

Tabby pushed off the wall and took a few steps back to get a good run up. Then she ran at the door with her shoulder down. Her body struck it solidly, but though the hinge creaked, it didn't give way. She tried again, with much the same result.

_If only it was as easy as they make out in the movies. One good kick and boom, you're in. Jeez! Much more of this and I'm gonna put my damn shoulder out!_

It took three collisions in all to open the door. Tabby grit her teeth and smashed into it one last time, feet pedalling the floor like pistons to get up enough power. The lock gave one pitiful whine, followed by a suspicious crunch, and then she was in with her gun raised and both hands ready to fire at a moment's notice.

"Police! Freeze!"

And then her jaw dropped.

From the reports and noises she'd been expecting a Filth Demon, or at least a run-of-the-mill troll. The figure that looked up at her entrance was demonic looking enough, but she could tell at once that he was either a child, or a simpleton, or both. His golden eyes went wide at the sight of her gun, and he emitted a small squeak more suited to a mouse than hell spawn.

Tabby's eyes narrowed, taking in the grisly vista at a glance. The demon was covered in blue fur that highlighted it against the sunlight streaming in through one of the windows. No chance of it escaping without her seeing then, but she kept her gun raised just in case. Trailing from each of its wrists were manacles affixed to knots of cord that looked like they'd recently been broken, and his spaded tail was attached to a wide steel ring around his neck via a chain that made it impossible for the serpentine appendage to move. It was a classic breakout look, and the patches of bare, rubbed-raw skin under each fetter supported the supposition.

The room itself was in tatters. Furniture had been smashed, the window hung open like a rotting wound, and there was a dressing table against one wall that sported a shattered mirror where a body had obviously been thrown against it. The blood spatters told her that much.

A corpse lay spread-eagled on the floor. Human male, Caucasian, he stared blankly up at the ceiling with sightless eyes. There was a ragged hole in the front of his shirt, rimmed by a rapidly spreading circle of red. From the way the blood was moving it was obvious he'd died mere minutes, maybe even seconds ago. Probably while she was still breaking the door down.

_Damn it!_

The demon was clutching at a long kitchen knife in one grotesque, three-fingered hand. Its blade was smeared in blood. Tabby blinked. From her experiences, knives and weapons like that weren't usually a demon's first choice of killing implement, especially if humans had made them. Something about 'impurifying' the deed, as she recalled.

Still, she cocked the revolver.

The demon laid his ears back and looked in horror at the bloodstained bread knife. Tabby almost fired as he dropped it and it clattered noisily to the floor, but stayed her hand when, instead of running or trying to attack her, the beast covered his head and crouched down on the floor into a tiny rocking ball.

"I didn't mean to!" he whimpered pathetically. "I didn't... he came at me. I... he was going to... but I... I-I-I didn't. I couldn't... I didn't mean to." And then he did the last thing she expected.

He started to cry.

_What the f - ? _

Tabby wasn't stupid enough to relinquish her hold on her weapon, but the incongruous sight made her stare all the same. The demon was really crying. Weeping like a baby with his head in his hands. It was such an odd sight that she wondered whether it was actually an illusion - hypnosis or glamour or something, but a bite to the tongue soon cured her of that idea.

"I didn't mean to..." the creature wept soulfully.

For the first time in her career as a member of the Demon Division, Tabby Smith had absolutely no idea what to do.

_Oh... **shit**!_

It was three long, terrifying breaths, before some form of routine took the place of innovation, and gave her some idea of what to do. The lean, furry demon was still weeping hysterically- there was a dead body on the floor, and he was clearly involved, though what an investigation would turn up was anybody's guess.

Officer Smith edged closer, still aiming but pressing more delicately on the trigger. "You are under arrest. You will be detained at NYPD Demon Division-" Come on, Tabby, don't choke now... "You have the right to an attorney. Anything you do, say, cast, inscribe or excrete can and will be used against you in a court of law..."

She recited the rest of the Demonic Miranda, and approached closer still- until she was as close as she could get without touching directly. The demon looked up again, gold eyes puffy and still leaking fluid- no telling if it was saltwater or something else entirely. He- yes, it appeared so- he didn't resist when she grabbed for his oddly shaped extremities and cuffed him, the warded gloves protecting her from contact.

Weird- no yelp or jerk as the ensorcelled cuffs latched on and the binding spells took effect. He only trembled, tail twitching as it was strained in an unnatural position attached to his collar. Once she was sure she had him secure, Tabitha reached for her radio.

"Have Harkness and Maximoff prep the interview room- suspect in custody. And get Homicide in here."

* * *

Wanda Maximoff glared at the occupant of the warded circle. Trace had been in earlier to gather everything they could from the demon's body, but the blue fuzzy creature still bore spatter from the attack.

Currently, he was rocking himself back and forth as he huddled in a crouch. All that carried across the audio was the occasional squeak.

"Something's not right," said Agatha. "Tread carefully."

Wanda nodded once before entering.

The demon whimpered and covered his head.

Agatha pulled up a seat and started the recording. "Interview begins at thirteen fifty-four. Officers present, Agatha Harkness, SCS... and Wanda Maximoff, JWA. Suspect is an unknown class of demon."

"Let's start with the basics," said Wanda. "Do you have a name?"

Whimper. Nod.

Thank the Powers that they had video as well. "Can you tell us your name?"

Another whimper. Another nod. "...K'rt W'gn'r..." Some soft sobs.

"You'll have to speak louder for the recording devices, dear," said Agatha.

_'Dear'? _pondered Wanda.

The little demon cleared his throat. "Kurt Wagner," he managed, German accent as thick as his voice was with tears. "I want to go home..."

_If I was a rookie, _thought Wanda. _I'd **swear** he was truly crying. _"What happened?" she asked. "What happened in the apartment?"

"He - he came at me... said I was... no use to him alive. He said... he said I might be good bait." He sobbed, rubbing at his wrists and ankles. "I did - something... and I was free. I was out of the... uh... what is the word? Begrenzungen? Uh... To tie down?"

"Restraints," said Agatha.

"Ah, dankeschoen, Frau." He wiped his face, smearing it with blood and tears. "I was out. I tried to get out the window, but he threw things. He did magic that stopped me. There was noise and I was afraid and so tired. He caught me. I just wanted to _stop _him. I wanted to _live. _We fell and... Gott..." he collapsed into more weeping. "I didn't mean it. Please. I didn't mean it... I didn't want to..."

Agatha gestured for Wanda to follow her out of the room.

"Looks like a classic case," said Wanda. "Guy summons a junior demon, discovers it isn't worth crap, tries to get an upgrade and the critter turns on him."

"Oh?" said Agatha, pointing to the observation window.

Inside the warded circle, the demon calling himself Kurt Wagner was trying to get the blood off his hands. Agatha turned up the volume on the audio.

"Gott... Gott... Jesus... Helfen Sie mir. Heilige Mutter, helfen mir..."

"Since when do demons _pray_?" said Wanda.

"Exactly," said Agatha. "I don't think he _is _a demon..."

Wanda resisted the urge to snort. "Um, are we looking at the same thing, here? Blue, fuzzy, fangs, forked tail, yellow yes - whole kit n' caboodle. What else _could_ it be but a demon?"

Agatha looked thoughtfully at the wall, stroking her chin. "I don't know," she said softly, "but I intend to find out."

There was a long pause.

"You're serious, aren't you?"

Agatha nodded.

Wanda took pause. She respected the older woman a hell of a lot more than the rest of the department did, but even she had trouble following the line of thought this time. "So... what? He speaks a few religious verses and suddenly he's an unknown quantity? Call me a sceptic, but I don't buy it."

"Neither will the prosecution. Most likely they'll call it a glamour or some such, intent to deceive us and pervert the course of justice." Agatha blinked, and then turned to her associate. "Who made the arrest?"

"Uh..." Hastily, Wanda checked her flipchart, tracing a line of meaningless gibberish and legal jargon with her finger. "Says here Alvers and Smith took the call, but Smith made the arrest alone. Alvers got send home about an hour ago with painkillers to practice with his new crutches."

Agatha sighed, loud and long. "Why does that not surprise me? Have Smith come here. I need to ask her a few things."

Wanda nodded, departing in a hurry. When she returned, Agatha was still on the wrong side of the glass, watching the demon with pensive eyes.

"Here she is."

The woman turned. "Tabitha."

Tabitha had a plastic cup of steaming coffee in one hand, pen in the other, and a hearty scowl on her face. "What?" she asked minimally, glancing through the glass. "Oh. That one."

"Yes, this one. Tabitha - "

"Tabby. You make me sound as old as you when you call me that."

Agatha's smile was brittle. "_Tabby_... how did this arrest go?"

"Excuse me?" Tabby raised an eyebrow, and then turned to Wanda. "You lugged me out of my nice, comfortable coffee break for this? You've got the report sheet, sweetheart. Or the internal phone network."

"Just answer the question, Smith. Don't make me pull rank on you."

Tabby's scowl deepened. "The arrest went smoothly, if you're really interested."

"Smoothly as in how? Did the suspect struggle? Any verbal abuse? Attempts at cursing you?"

Her expression wavered for a moment, as she peered into the adjoining room, where the demon was still rocking like a patient on a psychiatric ward. "No. No, nothing like that. Went real quiet, actually. Well, aside from the 'crying'."

"He cried?"

"Still doing it, as far as I can see."

"I see." Agatha nodded, stroking her chin again.

Wanda gave her a sidelong look. "You've got that glint in your eye. What're you thinking?"

"I am thinking that this case isn't as classic as it looks. Are the crime scene photos in?"

"In glorious Technicolor. Usual business. Blood, sigils, sigils in blood..."

"I would like to see them."

"What about our perp?"

"Ask him what he wants to eat," said Agatha. "Research is still trying to narrow down his species... knowing his diet is bound to help."

* * *

He was cold and hungry and tired and all he could do was cry.

The door opened and shut again, admitting the young one who had a taste for red. "Is there anything you need for your comfort?" she asked.

"I'd... like some food?" he risked. "Please?"

The young woman sighed. "What _sort_ of food?"

"Hamburger, Pizza..." he thought about the wonderful tastes he'd been missing. "Gebratenes Huhn... haben Sie gebraten Fische?"

"In _English_?"

"Entschuldigung, fraulein..." he rubbed and rubbed his hands, making washing motions. "I would like some fried chicken and fried fish, bitte." He made sure to emphasise the word 'fried'. His late captor had often served him raw things. Disgusting.

"All at once?" she said.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking at his feet. Blood matted the fur there, too. "I'm very hungry... there was never anything proper to eat. He warded... everything..."

"Uh-huh," said the woman. She scribbled some notes. "Anything else?"

"I get _more_?" he startled.

"The more we know about you, the sooner we can sort this mess out," she said. "What do you need?"

"I need to _wash_." His hands spasmed again, frantically trying to clean when there was no way to clean and nothing to clean with. "I would like my tail free, please? It hurts like this. I promise I will not hurt anyone."

"I'll see what I can do." She made to leave.

"Fraulein?"

"Yeah?"

"When he took me... he took my beads. Can I have them back?"

* * *

Agatha copied the sigils in the photos. Some were the standard wards against theft and violence, but the newer ones refused egress without permission from the one who'd made them. They had, of course, been shattered upon his death.

Interestingly, the apartment's one bed held the other half of the creature's restraints. He would be... very vulnerable in the position that the bonds dictated.

"Fascinating," whispered Agatha.

"Got all you need?"

"Get forensics to document the creature's wounds," she said. "I want to reconstruct the events."

"Want me to call in Necromancy as well?" volunteered Tabby.

Agatha glared at her. "Please. Corpses that die from their own actions make horrible witnesses. We'll only call in the deceased if we reach an impasse."

Wanda arrived, brandishing her notebook. "You're not going to _believe_ what he wants."

"Food, clothes, and a bath?" suggested Agatha.

"_People_ food. Fast food, even. He wants it _cooked_."

"Hey, some of the naturalized ones want people food," said Tabby. "Hell, my neighbour upstairs is a retired Revenger and it just _loves_ deep-fried chicken."

"He's that young, he might _think_ he's human," said Wanda. "Remember the last time that happened? Nothing worse than a demon who's FUITH ..."

Tabby snorted. "And _how_. That took three SWAT teams and half the ATF to take down."

"If this man summoned him," said Agatha, tapping the sigils, "he should have been able to refine the sigils to restrain the demon specifically. He wouldn't use this catch-all ward. If he'd _bought _the demon, on the other hand …"

"Aw, _man_..." Tabby griped. "Not another illegal auction ring."

* * *

While food was being arranged and forensics stepped on to get moving on documenting the demon's wounds, the harried department psychiatrist was also contacted. He would most certainly be interested in the case here, once the other backed up work was completed, delayed, or otherwise handled. Dr. Xavier was a gently formidable shrink, who some on the force had taken to calling Mindflayer because he seemed able to root out anything from anyone.

When Xavier came to the holding cell, the creature was shivering and alternating between obsessively rubbing his hands and obsessively rubbing his head.

They'd given him an altered jumpsuit to wear, instead of the stained loincloth that he'd had on being captured. Someone had cleaned him after forensics documented his every inch; and now, Xavier bought food.

Just the smell bought him out of his rocking huddle. He walked right up to the bars, but was careful not to touch the enspelled metal.

Xavier could feel the boy's hunger like a physical force, and slid a pizza box in through the food slot. "I understand you prefer to be called Kurt."

"Ja." Tridactyl hands opened the box and he drank in the scent as if it were a much-needed drug. "Oooooh... _danke_..." He tore out the largest slice and practically crammed the entire thing into his mouth, one bite at a time.  
The relief from hunger was a palpable thing. Xavier picked up memories of sickening things, served raw... of biting hunger so bad that the creature _had_ to eat things that would make him ill. Of far less pleasant things happening to him while he was weakened by such illness.

Xavier took notes on those mental images and let the creature eat. There was certainly not going to be any revelations whilst he was satiating his hunger.

It took him a few minutes to finish devouring the pizza, including the time it took him to pick the cardboard clean of remnants and lick his six fingers free of any trace of remaining grease. "Dankeschoen," he breathed. "_Dankeschoen_. Oh, I think I'd forgotten what good food _tasted_ like... _Danke_..." Golden, glowing eyes fell to staring at the remaining boxes and packets on and around Xavier's chair. His fingers and tail twitched, but he stilled himself.

"Let's start," said Xavier, "with your name. Why 'Kurt Wagner'?"

"That's my name," he said. "Kurt Ignatius Wagner."

Xavier's brow twitched. He'd just freely said the names of two saints. That was supposed to be anathema to demons.

He felt the broadcasted thought from behind the observation window... _Definitely FUITH._

_Hush,_ he told Maximoff. _I need to focus on **his** thoughts. _

The creature was squinting, as if trying to see something. He stopped the instant he noticed Xavier's interest.

"Tell me, Kurt," said Xavier. "Where is your home?"

"Heirelgart. Germany. You might not find it on your maps. It's in the Schwartzwald."

_Aha... _A known area of paranormal activity. Most of their confiscated magical artefacts came from there. Not for the first time, Xavier found himself wishing that the Demon Division wasn't a fledgling organization on trial by the entire world. If he had the resources and connections... he could do so _much_... "The Schwarzwald... The Black Forest?"

"Ja. That is the English... ja." He seemed magnetically pulled by the presence of food. "Bitte... I'm still hungry... may I have more, please?"

Xavier could sense no deceit in him. Not yet. He handed through a box of deep-fried chicken and observed how he ate it.

Skin, flesh, bone. Those sharp teeth came in handy for cracking open bones and gaining access to the marrow.  
But what bothered Xavier the most was his _neatness_. The discarded pizza box became a trashcan for the bones too little to be cracked, or shards of shattered skeleton now divested of any protein.

Greed-demons could take any shape, he knew, but they weren't habitually neat. They rarely cleaned themselves.

"How did you come into being?" Xavier asked.

"Nobody knows," he said. "Mama and Papa said they found me on their doorstep. There was no hint of where I came from, nobody lurking in the bushes to see if I was taken in." He shrugged. "Vater Heigl baptised me the next day and - "

"_Baptised_?" Xavier yawped. "But you _can't_ baptise a demon... Not into the church..." Even the humanised, those who actually _believed _themselves to be human couldn't be baptised with holy water.

Harkness barged into the room. "CSI just came back with every bead they could unearth," she said, brandishing a swatch of plastic bags.

For the first time, Kurt's eyes left the food and focussed on the bags. He watched intently as Harkness laid down each one outside the bars.

"You may take what is yours," she said.

He went like an arrow to one specific bag.

The one that held a rosary.

He brought it through the bars and tore it from the bag. It was an old thing, the wooden beads polished by many fingers, and the silver crucifix shone from the reverent touch of many hands – including these, tridactyl, fur-bearing ones. Kurt Wagner, suspected demon, bought the crucifix to his lips and kissed it, then knelt on the floor and began muttering the rosary in German. It had to be an uncomfortable position for him, given that his digigrade legs weren't made for kneeling... but he knelt, regardless.

He wasn't doing it to shock, mock, or disgust. He was doing it because he _needed_ to... with a palpable love for God.

"I was right," said Agatha. "This is no ordinary case."

* * *

_TBC_

* * *

****

**ObNits:**

_Currently,** he** was rocking **himself **back and forth as** he** huddled in a crouch. _

-Ubiquitous 'demons' are usually assumed as male unless investigators are informed otherwise.

_"He's that young, he might think he's human," said Wanda. "Remember the last time that happened? Nothing worse than a demon who's **FUITH** ..."_

-FUITH is an anachronism for 'Fucked Up in the Head'.


	2. Fools Rush In

* * *

**2. Fools Rush In**

* * *

Tabby had her feet propped on the desk. Wanda pushed them off as she swept past. "Born in a barn?"

Tabby scowled and took a defiant sip of lukewarm coffee.

Xavier was still in with the creature, as was Agatha. Wanda had been dismissed after the third scolding for her thoughts being too loud, and Tabby had gratefully retired in her wake to finish her less than piping hot beverage. Now the two found themselves ensconced in an anteroom, forbidden to leave until Xavier emerged in case he had questions of them.

Uncomfortable silence. Tabby eventually broke it by slurping loudly and leaning back in her chair. It gave a long, uneasy creak and she sat up again. "Do we know who the victim was?"

"Uh..." Wanda, caught mid-pace, looked blankly at her for a second. Then she hurried to her precious clipboard. "Uh, it says here the apartment belongs to a 'Dr. Karl Malus'. No word on whether that's the name of the body, though."

"Pretty crummy place for a doctor to live."

Wanda shrugged. She didn't have all the answers. Not yet.

Tabby cracked a few vertebrae back into place, arching her back like the dearly departed feline her mother had named her after.

Wanda grimaced. Not that she didn't love her job, and the thrill and newness of working in a place like the Demon Division, but ... well, Officer Smith was a grunt. She had all the social attributes of a grunt, too. Something about that set Wanda's teeth on edge. She generally avoided contact with Smith and her macho friends. They were of a different breed to her - a harsher, world-wearier kind of person, with a cynicism as long as her arm. In the basest sense, Smith still held the human vestiges of a predator, while Wanda was still growing into her fangs.

"We got a fix on this Dr. Malus fellah, then?"

The question jerked Wanda from her thoughts. "How should I know?"

"Jeez, you people. Put you behind a desk and you think the world answers to you." Tabby shook her head, then snatched the empty cup off the tabletop and crushed it into a mess of broken plastic.

"Was that really necessary?"

"No. But I wanted to do it."

Wanda raised an eyebrow. "I thought law enforcement was all about construction, not destruction."

"You play your games and I'll play mine, princess."

"Don't call me princess."

Tabby actually smiled at that. "Whatever you say, Miss Maximoff."

Wanda had a smart remark all ready for that, really she did, but she was cut off by Agatha's sudden entrance. "So how's our demon?" she asked instead, pretending that the exchange with Tabby hadn't happened.

"He's praying," Agatha replied, and said no more until she sat at her desk and tapped a few keys on her office computer.

"Um..." said Tabby. "What?"

Agatha was typing, squinting at the screen periodically to make sure what she typed was correct. "I said he's praying." She pressed a final key. "So now I'm trying what this 'google' thing will turn up."

Glad of the distraction, Wanda dived to her own PC and searched out the good Dr. Malus. It turned out that he was certainly no surgeon. A large portion of his money came from the Sideshow Freak portion of the professional wrestling circuit, and he used it in several prohibited demonic-related pursuits. The man was almost a genius – save for the fact that he kept bumping up against the law. Most of his experiments took place over the border, but America was the only place where it was legal to have some variety of pet demon.

The problem lay in the fact that the useful ones weren't pretty, and the pretty ones were damn near deadly. Some tried interbreeding the twain and that's when things truly went to hell. Then there were smugglers, pimps, thieves and illegal summoners, not to mention those who fell under the heading 'just plain sicko'.

Damn the religious equality folks and allowing Satanists to perfect their demonic summoning spells.

Some judicious surfing unearthed the fact that Malus was searching for a demon ... and judging by the preference for animalistic retro-gene grafts that showed up on his rap-sheet, Wanda could guess what he wanted the demon _for_.

"Interesting..." murmured Agatha. The office's one printer whirred into life.

Wanda took an excuse to grab a coffee and watched something slowly emerge. It had plenty of bright colours, and the text was apparently in German.

And there, millimetre by millimetre, emerged their perp.

Apparently, he was 'die Fleiderteufel'.

Fab.

* * *

Xavier wrote notes. The creature - Kurt - was seemingly done with praying for the moment and had returned to attempting to ingest his own weight in calories. His thanks lapsed from English into German, and from German to something that sounded like, but wasn't _quite_ German, and from there into a dialect that sounded purely ancient.

Charles foresaw long hours rewinding and re-viewing the recordings, to trace what those words actually _were _... and then finding some expert to verify what they meant.

Kurt was flagging, but only from pure exhaustion. He finished off the last morsel of available nourishment, then huddled on the bunk and ran beads through his fingers again until his movements stilled into sleep. The hand holding the rosary, Xavier noticed, refused to slacken its grip.

Now, for the interesting part.

He leaned back in his wheelchair and tented his fingers as he focussed his mind. Even demon minds were vulnerable when they were unconscious.

Charles Xavier slid into the creature's mind, riding his dreams into his memories.

First there was water. It was an indistinct memory, barely a feeling, and punctuated by the recollection of wet and cold. There was also a need to it. Xavier recognised the distinct sensation of a child seeking that which it desired most - the giver of warmth and food and safety. His giver had been torn away, but a new one arrived, taking him from the cold and making him warm again.

Images floated past. Brightly painted wagons drawn by steadfast horses with feathered hooves. The interior of a red and white tent. A kruller the size of his head. A meadow saturated with bluebells that were crushed under Andrei's hooves.

Andrei? 

He knew the name as Kurt did, but had no real recollection of it. It was Kurt's memory, and so Xavier rode it, curious.

Thus far there had been nothing that might denote a demonic realm or other typical pace of origin. The memories had actually all been quite pleasant, and he kept his guard up just in case it was an illusion designed to trap him on the astral plane. It would not be the first time a demon in custody had tried such a trick, but Xavier had not earned the nickname Mindflayer by chance. He could take care of himself.

A face framed by curls of blond. A laugh. The swish of a tail. The crunch of an ill-timed jump over a fence.

Andrei.

A centaur.

Naturally.

This 'Andrei' featured in a lot of the memories Xavier passed, as did other faces. Delving briefly into Kurt's upper-subconscious, Xavier tacked names to each one. Margali. Jimane. Father Heigl. Anja. Katja. Erika. Mama. Papa. Stefan.

This last mostly featured alongside Andrei. After a few moments, Xavier ascertained that this Stefan was the son of the Margali woman, and brother to the Jimaine girl - a pretty thing whose presence was mostly a tag-along, lovesick puppy in the back of Kurt's head.

The three boys held smiles in Kurt's memories, and Xavier felt a wave of undiluted happiness wash over him. It was so much different than what he'd been half-expecting in here that for a second he almost let go of his defences.

The Impossible Brothers.

Kurti, Andrei and Stefan. Perennially joined at the hip since they were old enough to sit upright, and survivors of many scrapes and misadventures that still made their way around campfires in Winter.

Did you hear the one about when Kurti got stuck in a tree and Stefan had to fetch him down? They both fell on Andrei and knocked him out.

Did you hear about when Andrei fell in a ditch of stagnant water and they had to clean him off before they went home? Their mothers were all ready to be livid until they saw them; then they couldn't stop laughing.

Did you hear about the treasure hunt when they buried Astrid's best brooch?

Did you hear about when they claim they met a gnome in the forest, and she smacked their noses with birch twigs?

Did you hear did you hear did you hear?

Childhood memories, with a total absence of blood, save that from cut knees and nosebleeds.

Xavier felt himself relaxing.

A swift scene change. Dark night overtook the sky. Rain fell in sheets. A baby screamed nearby, drowned out only by the thunder.

Lightning. Stefan's eyes, wild and wide. A struggle. A knife.

Blood.

Kurt ran from the accusations that followed. He didn't get far.

They caught him, put him in a small cage meant for dogs. He crouched, sobbing into his hands. He held his rosary, but kept it hidden. They'd already taken his shirt and belt. He held up his trousers with an elbow, tail wrapped around his waist.

A day. A week. A month. Infinity. No time at all. They poked at him in his cage. Sometimes they used sticks. The braver few taunted him, telling him to bite their fingers while elders decided what to do with him.

Why was nobody coming to rescue him? Didn't they care?

No. Stefan was dead because of him. He didn't deserve to be rescued.

Whisper whisper whisper. There was a stranger in Winzeldorf. He would know what to do. He'd had dealings with this sort of thing before.

A face. A few foreign words. The glint off a pair of sunglasses, even though they were indoors. He'd been kept in a wine cellar, deep below the ground. This newcomer didn't want to be recognised – or maybe wanted nobody to have a good description for anyone later.

Except that nobody was coming, were they?

Stefan. Put the knife away, please. Stefan! _Stefan!_

A monetary exchange. Then he and his cage were covered and loaded onto a truck.

Kurt knew English. He'd had to learn it for when the troupe was on the move. He recognised Dutch and French, though he couldn't understand them. They passed through France and boarded a ship. There was a cloaking spell around him. He understood that he was being smuggled. He also knew that this was his punishment, so he didn't fight it. That seemed to please the man with the hat and sunglasses.

England. A place called Southampton. Kurt awoke one day to a warehouse. He was on display on a small stack of boxes. People bid for him.

An illegal demon auction.

On impulse he tried to cry out, to tell them that he was human as they, but no words would come out. All his sounds were growls and gargles and savage snarls. He couldn't force his brow out of a scowl, and gradually he realised the enchantment on his cage.

He was bought. He was shipped. He was flown to America, and a place called New York. He sat in his cage, cramped and chafed where he rubbed against the bars too often. The enchantment wore off, and he cried for his dead 'brother' and all that he'd lost.

The man who'd bought him tempted him from the cage with food. Kurt resisted, not liking his lights, but he was so _hungry_. Eventually he fell upon the food, and the man surprised him with the neck brace.

He couldn't move his tail.

He couldn't _move_.

Xavier reeled at the surge of frustration and memories of long hours chewing at rope that was always replaced. The man never used steel. He watched Kurt spit out splinters, and then calmly replaced the restraints. He tied Kurt to the only available bed, sleeping on the floor himself. Sometimes he worked at a desk and slumped, exhausted, across his papers when he needed rest. Sometimes he stayed up all night, just watching Kurt writhe and struggle and eventually collapse, worn out and panting.

When he stopped writing and started cutting, Kurt panicked. He tried to get away more than once. He failed every time.

The man was angry. The blood was not good blood. The fur would not work in the spell. The tears he'd collected in a phial were tossed against the wall. Useless.

You are useless.

So much money spent – wasted.

More good dead than alive. See what makes you tick.

The man's eyes, wild and wide. Another struggle. Another knife.

More blood.

Then a crash, and Xavier recognised Officer Smith propelling herself through the door. Whitewash flaked onto the floor and the knob bounced off the wall. He felt Kurt's fear, the disgust at what he'd let himself do again. It was almost as though he loosed the knife himself, held his own hands over his head, sobbed his own tears.

Not again ... please not again ... please, please, please ... 

Then darkness.

And someone calling his name.

**_Charles!_**

* * *

"Charles!" Xavier's assistant, Jean Grey, shook her mentor. "Charles, please come back..." She loosed her mind outward in a lifeline, just like he'd taught her, and edged her voice with her thoughts. **_"Charles..." _**

She felt a tug on the lifeline. Then gradually, the man came back to his body. He sighed, stretched, and rearranged himself on the chair. "Was I under long?"

"Um, about two hours, give or take a few minutes. I checked in a few times – started to worry when your breathing became shallow."

"Maybe _that_ was the trap ..."

"Sir?"

"I couldn't find any demonic memories in him," Charles explained. Jean already knew about the case – he'd left her to take care of the paperwork when he first came down here. His stomach rumbled a little, reminding him how long ago that was. "There was a complete childhood. Family ... friends ... siblings ... I think I was pulled in by them."

"Should I try to-?"

"No. You'll get lost, Jean. Even though you're stronger than I, your mind is still too unschooled. You could be trapped in his mind if you made the attempt." He interlaced his fingers, pressing his thumbs to his lips. "There's something ... altogether odd about this."

The demon - if he even _was _a demon - slept on, whimpering and twitching in his sleep. The illusion of a sixteen-year-old boy was so _complete _... It was amazing.

"Hey, is that a _rosary_?" Jean boggled.

"Yes," said Charles. "It is. Get the division Sensitive to verify its holiness while he's out. In the meantime, I have some names to research."

* * *

_To Be Continued ..._

* * *

_Apparently, he was 'die Fleiderteufel'. _  
-- Quite literally 'The Flying Devil'. 


	3. The Net Widens

* * *

**3.**

* * *

Centaurs get automatic respect. Or, at the very least, attention. One showing up in _this_ kind of market, however, managed to make some drool.

Mythological creatures brought a lot of money in the right areas. Some spells called for Centaur spoor, Centaur fur, Centaur blood, flesh, or urine. The avaricious eyes quantified how much this one could be sold for, either in pieces or as a whole. Then, when he came closer to those calculating stares, they began to realise exactly why such things were so valuable.

Andrei Guismann stood at well over seven feet high, and even in his peasant's smock it was plain that his human-half was equally as strong as his horse-half. When Andrei questioned people, words like 'bulk' and 'strong' filled their minds. Children gathered in his wake to compare his hoofprints to their arms and legs.

Everybody stared at the Centaur. Which was why Bothariwas so glad he was there.

With Andrei around in broad daylight, not one of them was paying attention to what Bothari was doing in the shadows. It was an arrangement the two of them had agreed upon in Winzeldorf, when they'd chanced upon each other in the same dingy warehouse. It was an arrangement that worked like a well-oiled machine. Andrei would use his size and senses to feel out the populace while Bothari crept around and raided their records for information. Then, at night, the two of them would compare notes. Andrei's nose had never led them wrong, yet. Plus he was a cheap source of transportation if the locals decided to become obstructive.

The Count Von Reissig himself had sent Bothari on his mission to find the missing boy - Kurt Wagner - and ensure his safety. A brother's love spurred Andrei in the same pursuit, but that didn't mean that the boy lacked the heart of a soldier. Andrei was still a stripling by Centaur standards, but he could lift and toss a grown man like a rag doll if he was in a mind to. And with his brother in the hands of demon-marketers, he was often in a mind to.

Bothari quite liked him.

* * *

Xavier stared at the screen. The poster - once translated from German - declared the people on it to be the Flying Amazements, but Xavier was far more interested in what accompanied the text.

There on the poster, were Astrid, Johannes, Katja, Anja, Erika - and Kurt Wagner.

They were a _family_.

Apparently, the memories were very, _very_ real.

Was it possible, Xavier wondered, to have and raise a demon that didn't _know_ it was a demon? A creature that would be shocked and appalled when it began to kill?

Ah, but there was no trace of subconscious bloodlust. Only the primitive desire to survive, each time he killed. And fear. Deep, horrendous terror.

This was, indeed, quite the puzzle.

He looked up when the door opened, blinking away afterimages.

"Uh, sir?" A nondescript officer stood in the doorway. "I was told to tell you the Sensitive is here."

"Really?" Xavier surveyed his watch. Nearly an hour and a half had passed since he left the suspect. "That was fast."

"What can I say? Your message has me intrigued." A tall woman with white hair in a messy chignon strode in. Immediately, a sense of presence filled the room. When she smiled, it lightened to vague serenity. "Hello, Charles."

"Ororo." Charles blinked. "I thought - "

"Moira's back in Scotland. I'm covering her shifts while she's away."

"How - "

"About three weeks, give or take." Ororo winked. "Looks like you're stuck with me."

Charles shook his head. "You haven't changed, have you?"

"You have. You're shinier than the last time I saw you." She leaned on the table, waving away the officer at the door. "Hop along now. I can take it from here."

The door closed. Charles swivelled his chair around. Ororo Munroe was a psychomatrist - a step above the run of the mill Sensitive. Born with the innate ability to 'read' objects and places of their history, she had spent the first thirteen years of her life revered as a goddess in a remote part of Kenya. Charles had discovered her there when exploring the country as a postgraduate, and the teenager had essentially followed him home when she learned of the world beyond her borders.

That had been twenty years ago, and since then she had progressed through several college courses and different professions. Seeing her here denoted yet another change of direction in her career.

"I thought you lived in Washington now?" he said, steepling his hands.

"I did. I got bored. The newspapers wouldn't leave me alone after I worked that presidential case." Ororo spiralled a hand at the wrist, referring to an incident wherein she had exposed a president's adultery by 'reading' the Oval Office. After a high profile follow up, she had become the media's darling for a while. Cameras loved her figure and exotic looks, but Ororo had tried very hard to fade into the background and live as normal a life as she could.

Which had evidently led her to New York, and the experimental Demon Division. Where else could a former goddess reside but among the most blasé of the already blasé officers in NYC?

"Why didn't you call? It's been a long time."

"I did call. Do you even check your answering machine?" She gave him the evil eye, and Charles reddened.

"Some days I think I'd rather face a thousand hellspawn than a single answer-phone."

"I guess you haven't changed as much as I thought, then." Ororo gestured to the furry blue acrobat on his screen. "This the mysterious perp you beeped me about?"

"Indeed. This is Kurt Ignatius Wagner."

She frowned. "I'm not really up on my religious babble, but aren't there a couple of saint names in there?"

He nodded, buzzing the chair towards the door. "You're starting to understand why I called you. Walk this way."

* * *

Moira cursed. There had been another Morrigan killing.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that they knew the Morrigan had been locked up while in her most powerful, and yet vulnerable form. It was no ordinary copycat because when witnesses saw the perp they always mentioned an ageless woman with red hair and skin painted so blue you'd swear she was born that way. There weren't many who could emulate the fallen goddess without being smote.

"The Morrigan killings _reappeared_ in Winzeldorf," she'd been told. "We noticed they happened almost straight after Interpol were called in. We now know where this 'Morrigan' is heading. She's also been cleaning out illegal demon summoning rings."

Moira was shocked at that. So the Morrigan murderer was moving, shifting from place to place, identity to identity. It acted in several respects as the Morrigan had done, but in some ways was very different. The Morrigan was an ancient deity. _This _was just a murderer with delusions of grandeur. Had the real Morrigan resurfaced then there would've been a big song and dance about it, not this amount of slinking about in the shadows. That wasn't Morrigan's style. Still, mortal psycho or not, tracking the suspect wasn't easy. Moira had learned that much from the files she'd been given when she arrived, and worked tirelessly until now in figuring it all out and its connection to the reason she'd been summoned hence.

"The Hellfire club started a clampdown. They don't summon higher-level demons anymore. Far too dangerous, even with the best summoning rituals. Illegal summoning rings are just asking for it. Just the rumour of Morrigan killings got them in a flap. They all think their binding spells are going to shatter and all their unworldly shit is gonna hit the fan, so they're palming off their stock to auctions as fast as they can – most of them illegal auctions, at that."

"You're telling me that this Morrigon impersonator is heading to _America_?"

"Returning home. We found her main identity. Raven Darkholme."

Moira rolls her eyes at the dreadful pun. The Winzeldorf case was unusual, in that their seemed to be two demons, one human looking, and the other demonic, but there was only one demon presence registering, and that demon was muffled by the holy burial. The Sensitive they'd sent up that way said it wasn't even a real demon in the ground, either, but a human boy possessed by an evil spirit. Now the spirit was locked away in consecrated earth, doomed to stay with the bones of the last person it infected until the end of time or someone even more foolish set it free and allowed it to possess them, instead – whichever came first.

The Demon Division didn't usually travel this far out – not even for something like a copycat Morrigan. DD was a New York thing, and though her accent betrayed her heritage, Moira knew her place was there. It was only the tenuous link to her own situation that had drawn her away from her post and sent her off in search of what might only be moonshine on water. The Morrigan had been sighted near Winzeldorf. The possession and murder had happened in Winzeldorf. And now, another ring. Another chance. Another possibility of threading everything together somehow.

Moira stared hard at the map and Darkholme's Interpol file. _I'll find you, Rahne. I swear it._

* * *

Kurt woke with a snort and a flinch the instant he sensed someone getting close to him. He instantly curled up into a protective ball and yelped.

The woman recoiled. "Oh! I'm sorry... I didn't mean to startle you."

Kurt scooted as far away as he could, just in case.

It took him a few minutes to stop staring at her and notice the guards that were armed with tranquillizer rifles. After that, he concentrated on being very, _very_ still.

"There, now," cooed the woman. She tucked white locks back behind her ears. "_There_, now ... sshhh ... I just came to look at your beads."

Kurt untangled them from his fingers and held them tight in his fist. "But – I ... I just got them back."

"Tell you what," she said, her voice warm and comforting, "I'll sit right here while I'm looking at them. How's that?"

One of the guards lifted his gun as she sat, but she motioned them to relax.

Kurt tried to breathe even shallower.

"My name's Ororo," she said. "And I promise that I won't take your beads away."

Her lights were bright and beautiful. She wasn't lying.

Slowly, carefully, watching for any hint that the guards didn't like what he was doing, he uncurled enough to drip the beads into Ororo's palm.

"Thank you, Kurt," she said. She held them cupped in her hands as she closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

Kurt had almost relaxed when she began to shake. The hands around the beads trembled. She was _weeping_.

"Frau?" he risked. "Are ... are you unwell? Do you need something? Frau?"

Fear and terror. Layers and layers of it. Nightmares about growing horns. Horrors about flexible toes turning into hooves. The incessant worry that the whispers of "Demon!" might just be _true_.

Fear of Hell.

Fear of himself.

And yet, interwoven with this abject terror was a saint-like love of heaven. Feeling pure devotion in the midst of incense and candles.

A little further in, layers peeling back like parts of an onion. Years upon years upon years of hands touching, wearing smooth, counting rhythmically. Hail Mary. _Hail _Mary. And _there,_ under the layers of emotion and memory ... the benediction. Unbroken.

This was and remained a blessed object.

When Ororo opened her eyes, Kurt was offering her a tin cup full of water. His face, though covered in fur and beset with fangs, held an expression of genuine concern. He was radiating guilt.

"Thank you," she said, trading the drink for the beads.

"Are you better, now?" She watched the beads flick automatically through his fingers, like he was making sure all were still present and accounted for.

"Yes. I was always fine."

"But ... you were crying ..." The dangling crucifix began its upward circuit. "I'm - sorry I couldn't get you anything but water." He dropped into a crouch and let his breath out in an odd rhythm.

Ororo took a moment to realise ... he was praying. Intensely. With a desperate need to make the bad things go away. Almost without thinking she reached out a comforting hand for his shoulder. The image of an angst-filled teenager was complete enough that she felt momentarily blinded to his appearance.

And at that precise moment, fingertips barely brushing him, her second sight kicked in again and she saw his soul.

She barely restrained a gasp. His soul was not blackened, as is typical for a demon. It was not even the dark tainted grey of the less evil minions. It was a pure, shining white, untainted and untouched.

What's more, it was _human_. Completely and unequivocally so.

She panicked slightly, blinking hard to make sure she wasn't seeing things. After that was confirmed, she left swiftly to discuss what it meant, door banging in her haste.

Kurt heard her go, but didn't look up, as he was deep in prayer. As he sat there, the fervency of his prayer showed clearly on his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and a stray tear slipped out from under his eyelid. He hoped he would be out sooner or later. God would hear a prayer like this. He _had_ to.

If he even listened to sinners like him, of course.

* * *

Not all of Germany was online, but someone, somewhere, was scanning reports as they came in. There wasn't a great deal about the blue 'demon' in the cells, but there was a lot about some demonic murders and a Centaur - of all creatures - terrorising illegal demon shipping rings.

And one report of a missing son.

"Charles! _Charles_!" Ororo ran into his office. "I _Saw_ him."

"I think that was the point," said Xavier. "You learned about the rosary?"

"Yes, yes, it's holier than the Pope's breeches, but that's not important."

"It's _what_?"

"I _Saw_ him," Ororo repeated, ploughing on regardless of whether he swam or blundered along in her wake. "I Saw _into_ him."

The penny, as it was said, dropped. It dropped from a great height. "You saw his _soul_?" That was not an easy task. On ordinary Sensitive couldn't have done it in such a short time. Suddenly he was very glad Moira was away and Ororo was here. He had a feeling someone more advanced was needed on a case like this one was shaping up to be.

"And worse," she breathed. "Charles, it's _pure_. He's not only a human, but he's _pure_."

And Charles Xavier did something that he hadn't done for most of his life. "Oh … fuck."

"Can we still hold him? I mean - I know we still need him as part of this investigation, and soul's purity doesn't count for much evidence-wise ..." Ororo was still shaken from the sight of a very _human_ soul in a very inhuman body.

Charles sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "He hasn't lawyered up yet - I'm not sure that detail is even very well lodged in his mind, given what else he's been through here. But I can't find any wisdom in releasing him either. I don't think it would be safe for him out there, considering how Dr. Malus got hold of him, and – it seems more conducive to his health and our investigation he stay until something else can be thought out."

* * *

_To Be Continued …_

* * *

_Everybody stared at the Centaur. Which was why Bothariwas so glad he was there._

--Those of you unfamiliar with Lois McMaster Bujold had best study the books _Shards of Honour_, _Barrayar_, and _Warrior's Apprentice_ in order to meet the original Sergeant Bothari – though they're not compulsory to understand this universe's version.


	4. A Succubus and a Centaur

* * *

**4.**

* * *

Rogue cursed. She was up for auction. Again.

She was not that useful. After all, who wanted a succubus who couldn't control her powers? As a rule, most succubi just flat out _wouldn't_ indulge in a bit of self-control. Whether to spite authorities, or just because of their insatiable appetites, they used their powers non-stop. But Rogue just couldn't. She physically _couldn't _turn them off, and that was not for want of trying.

She'd been shipped over at least one ocean and no longer knew where she was. Most of the people around her spoke German, but she'd learned from when she once visited the French Quarter that you could get bastardised versions of any language outside their country of origin. The odd one or two spoke English, some with an American accent. There were spatterings of other languages, too, and even a few demon tongues. No way you could mistake one of _those_ once you'd heard it.

Damn it, she was _human_. Human – with the rights that went with it. They had no right to treat her like this; like some …_ object_.

With little else to do but chafe – they never listened when she told them – her mind drifted back to when her curse first manifested and she had nearly been killed for sucking so much life from a local boy. A woman had rescued her right off the floor, beating a way to her truck through a mob of suspicious people who were mothers, fathers and decent in the daylight.

The woman had checked out her injuries, pronounced them mostly superficial, and then given her a blanket and soup from a thermos while her companion drove. As Rogue sniffed at the offering and pushed it away, she had shaken her head sadly and spoken of a great many things Rogue didn't understand.

"I've faced it all. I've been worshipped, found useful, hunted, thrown away again ... it depends both where and when I am. And it never ceases to amaze me what humanity is capable of."

She was a shapeshifter. She made no bones about it, though she kept the guise of an austere woman in her early-forties for simplicity's sake. She even brought out a pair of spectacles and balanced them on the end of her nose.

"My default form, which I find most comfortable, is rather Morrigan-like, actually," she'd said when Rogue asked for proof and was refused. "Red hair, blue skin – you know the drill. _Not _exactly inconspicuous, but it smoothes out the wrinkles some. Hell, I'm older than my driver here, and she's no spring chicken."

"I heard that," said the woman in dark glasses.

"_Older_ than her?" Rogue couldn't keep the incredulity from her voice. The other woman, in addition to dark glasses at night, wore the careworn wrinkles of many decades and the type of ruched cardigan that just screamed 'advancing menopause'.

"Well, yes." She didn't elaborate much, but shifted the topic onto her companion's special abilities.

At first Rogue wondered what nuthouse they'd escaped from. Then, sinking into the realisation of what _she'd_ become, it didn't seem so farfetched that they were being truthful. _Then _she began to wonder what the hell they'd rescued her for, since they'd revealed this much but still wouldn't give her their names. Not even an alias.

"The problem _is_ that though some forms of magic practice are allowed – and even though fortune-telling is accepted – soothsaying isn't. Oh sure, get the right country and it may be legal on paper, but people claim demonic presences. It's like the abortion or euthanasia litmus test – right to some, wrong to others."

They travelled with babble for a short while, before Rogue hunched in on herself again at the subject matter.

"And you have it worse than us. I can hide from the world in a spare identity, and my partner is careful not to foretell the future too much."

She bit her lip and decided she had nothing more to lose. "Why are you helping me?"

The shapeshifter gave another sad smile. Her voice _sounded_ sincere, but she _was_ a shapeshifter. Deception was her specialty, surely. "Once, a long time ago, I gave birth to a beautiful boy. I was going to name him Michael. But he had what people consider a 'demonic' appearance. He couldn't hide the way I do. With my kind of life, doing the things I do and going the places I go, there was no chance of safety for such a child. So I gave him away to a trafficker I know – a good woman who knew good people in want of children and who didn't care about looks. She found a good home for him, though I don't know where, exactly. I never went to find out, either. Too dangerous. Even so, I've felt guilty about him all my life, and in people like you I have a chance to make up for that."

They had driven until Rogue could no longer keep her eyes open, and the faces of her attackers chased her into sleep. When she awoke, she was on a boat with a one-way ticket in her hand and an address in her pocket.

Her parents had been part of those who tried to 'expunge' her. She had no place else to go, so she had followed the directions, asked a few questions, and spied her way to the doorstep of one 'Muir Island Research Centre'.

She came out of her memories as she watched the furious bidding. She'd picked up on enough conversations to know that she was in _real _trouble this time – possibly even more than she'd been after Cody. Those waving their hands were those who wanted demon bits, rather than whole, live demons. Still, she morbidly supposed that it was better than being a sex toy, which was the original plan of the early bidders. _Useful demons aren't pretty. Pretty demons are deadly, _she repeated what Sean had often said. It was little comfort.

The hammer came down. "**Sold** to the man at the back."

Rogue considered spitting. She always hated the killings. She was surviving barely on energy drains right now, since food was unavailable. It made her fingers seek out exposed flesh even when she told them not to. The hunger was so fierce, and the man with the winning ticket was an early bidder. Lots of exposed flesh. Lots of chance. Another accidental killing on her head.

Some of the defeated bidders were leaving. They stopped and scattered when what looked like a man on a horse burst in and blocked their exit.

* * *

Moira looked carefully at the pattern-sheet she'd cobbled together and spread out in front of her team. "Look," she said clearly, since they didn't appear to be the shiniest bunch of grapes in the store, "the American Morrigan killings stopped here in Follery, this small Spanish town that I've marked with a red pin. The place was already noted down for succubi killings, and where the Morrigan trail went cold, this succubus one went red hot. Some witness reports say they saw the two together, which means we have some kind of basis for thinking the two trails are connected.

"Yes, Grinshaw, I realise it's a Christian succubi, rather than Celtic, but that's beside the point in this case. Anyway, the succubi reports for this particular hellspawn stop … here. See this blue pin? That's a little place called Winzeldorf, Germany. Near here is also where the Morrigan killings reappear. Based on reports and pattern-sheets the local police in that area have furnished us with, we reckon the rogue centaur attacks, the succubus trail and the Morrigan killings should be converging about … here. No, that's not Winzeldorf, Grinshaw. Please look closer before pointing out wrong facts.

"Now, they may not all be connected, but that's one bloody fiery cocktail to have in any one spot, right enough." She sucked in a breath between her teeth. "And so we enter, stage right, with as few casualties as possible – got that, Esterhazy? Keep that trigger-finger of yours under control."

Esterhazy let go of his firearm.

As the troops dispersed, Moira's second in command whistled. "Yanking you off your holiday was a good idea. You found the trails _and _a possible link."

Moira smiled grimly. "Xavier thinks I'm in Scotland. He won't be best pleased when he hears all the fun I had without him."

"No time to contact him and pull him from the case he's already working just for moral support. Besides, there's your personal stake to consider. You _did_ ask us to tell you about anything like - "

"I know, I know." She also knew she could get into a lot of trouble about conflict of interests over this. Personal matters were not supposed to encroach on police work – even that of the Demon Division.

Her second jabbed a finger at a small yellow pin – the mark of a suspected demon auction site. "We're raiding this one. It's closest to the point of convergence you indicted, and statistics say it's our best shot of tempting the Morrigan and the centaur out of hiding at the same time. It's got traits of sites they both like to hit. And we believe your foster daughter could be there, too." He sighed and ran and hand through his hair. "There are others. We'd prefer to raid them all before word gets out, but we'd never get there in time with our recruitment rate. Besides, this is the biggest."

"The biggest and the baddest." Moira turned away from the board. "Let's roll."

* * *

Helicopters whirred overhead as adept mages warded the entire area from escape. Just because the Demon Division was experimental didn't mean that authorities the world over failed to see the inherent usefulness of some things. 'Borrowing' officers and their expertise was becoming more and more common.

Combat-armoured men rode ropes down into the warded zone. Most of them focussed on apprehending people fleeing the building. Some barged past, knowing that the fleeing culprits would be rendered unconscious by the wards.

Moira entered when most of the scene was 'pacified' - meaning that all those prone to fight and cast nasty spells had been taught the true meaning of the reflective curse. Men in the field dubbed it the 'Rubber-Glue Blues'.

There was a Centaur in the centre of what could initially be mistaken for a blast zone; but then, angry Centaurs tended to _make_ blast zones. Scattered around were several cages of imps, demons and djinns, which had apparently been tossed aside in the mad rush for the exits. There were a couple of were-creatures, too – one wolf, one tiger, each partially shifted. In one of the few remaining upright cages was a very scantily clad thing, being calmly questioned by an unknown and rather ugly male in black fatigues.

"He's not one of ours," said Moira, indicating to the man.

"No, ma'am," said Esterhazy. "He's apparently working for a Count Von Reissig. Missing persons case, ma'am."

"And the Centaur?"

"With him, ma'am. He's the missing boy's brother." Esterhazy made a nervous face. "After that, it gets complicated, ma'am ..."

Moira narrowed her eyes. She hated when politics got involved in this stuff. Added to all the bureaucracy that went with demon stuff _anyway_, it made her head ache. And there was something about that girl in the cage that irked her, too.

Her brain whirred. Thoughts clicked. Memories slotted into place, wiping away the dirt and blood and bruises.

_Oh God... _Moira's heart dropped. "Marie? _You're _the succubus?"

She remembered Marie. She was a close friend of Rahne's. They had gone missing together from Muir – same day, same hour, same second, same place. At least, as far as they could tell. She'd thought it was some childish prank until they stayed missing. Then she'd dared to hope they had just got into some scrape or other and would be back when it was over.

If Marie and Rahne had been caught by traders right off the island, then what did that say for their security? And how many other humans were being passed off as demons by these illegal rings?

The first thing they would have to do would be to explain _just_ how lucky this ring was. Sooner or later they'd have made a worse mistake than catching unlucky humans. Any demon from the Upper Hell dimensions that got loose by masquerading as an imp would make the secretive Hellfire Club look _benevolent_.

The truth struck Moira with such force that she wondered why she was still standing. Marie was obviously was the succubi murderer. The trail of killings was the trail she been taken along from America to Germany after she was kidnapped from the outskirts of Scotland. They had started up again in Mexico, mere weeks after she and Rahne went missing. And the killings were not necessarily deliberate, either, as previously thought by the Division. Unlike real succubi, they had learned early on that Marie couldn't tone down her siphoning. It was obvious what some of the male victims – and in some cases women – they'd been using to track her were trying to do, and since the dead people were neck deep in this illegal ring business it explained the demonic auras they'd found at each scene.

Moira strode over and tried not to take in Marie's concave cheeks. "Have you seen Rahne, Marie?"

"My name's _Rogue_," Marie said angrily and out of habit. She blinked when she realised, and saw who was speaking to her. "Moira?" It didn't take long after that for the real implications to sink in. "Oh shit, not her, too. I thought she was on Muir with you. She can't be… in these places. She'll have worse problems than me. Her protection isn't automatic like mine…"

Moira could do nothing but watch as the girl broke down crying.

"You did good, boss." Her second sauntered up. "Got 'em all. Lock stock and barrel."

"No. No, I didn't. Rahne isn't here." Moira looked at Marie and saw the truth through the hope she'd held to before. "I don't think she ever was."

"Uh, right. But we got a lot of information though. And we solved the succubi murders." He whistled, having been filled in on some of the details. "A human with a succubus's touch? Nasty."

Rogue stared hard at him. "You got no idea." Her gaze was unnerving.

"Uh … but we know it was probably self-defence. So you won't be arrested. Just taken in for questioning. Y'know, just in case, and to pacify the legal types."

She gave a humourless chuckle. "Why don't you ask 'em? I wish I could say the dead don't tell no tales."

* * *

_T__o Be Continued..._

_

* * *

_


	5. Old Ghosts

* * *

**5. Old Ghosts**

* * *

Charles slept fitfully. The demons were flexing their muscles. They were curious, and curious demons were always less predictable. Curiosity can cause demons to break from their normal patterns, and when demons were disorderly, they were all the more dangerous. Having spent so much time around them – and since a large chunk of that time had centred around making psychic connections with those demons in the holding cells – Charles was attuned to their emotional state even at this distance.

The phone rang. He was awake enough not to jump. Briefly, he wondered who would ring at this time of night.

He got his answer seconds later.

"Charles, I've lost my daughter," said Moira's tinny voice.

Charles blinked. "You have a daughter?"

"Fostered. And I've lost her again," she gabbled.

"Wait, wait, wait… explain at the beginning. And speak slowly. Small words, if you please."

Moira did so. At the end of her sorry tale, Charles was more awake than ever.

The Morrigan was a pagan goddess of battle, strife, and fertility who frequently appeared to mortals in one of three guises - though a hooded crow and a woman with red hair and wode-covered skin were her favourites. She was one of the Tuatha Dé Danann – 'Tribe of the Goddess Danu' – and records stated she helped defeat the Firbolg at the First Battle of Mag Tuireadh, as well as the Fomorians at the Second Battle of Mag Tuireadh. There was a lot of complex history to her, and she was not often sighted without grief and destruction following in her wake. As far as Charles knew, she had forsaken this realm for many years, after a few mortals tried to 'change the locks' and keep her out for destroying their tribe. That was a time of powerful magicks – ancient powers long since lost to the Age of Science. Even a hint of her return was cause for concern.

"So you were yanked on this holiday following a trail of appearances by the Morrigan?"

"No, the one I'm after – which I still haven't caught, by the way – is just a copycat. Someone who maybe looks like the Morrigan, so the media gave her the name for a snappy headline."

Charles couldn't help but sigh in relief.

"Anyway, we thought we'd found both the 'Morrigan' and my foster daughter, but we only managed her best friend instead. She's human with – brace yourself, old chum – demonic traits, and was picked up by an illegal demon - "

Charles nearly dropped the phone

"- auction ring. Charles? Charles, are you still there?"

"Yes. Sorry. It's just that … we also picked up a human who passed through an auction ring. He looks a bit like a demon, but he's a verified pure soul." That was putting it _mildly_.

Moira ummed and ahhed for a moment. When Charles told her where the boy hailed from, and part of his story, she rapped off instructions. "Interview him about Winzeldorf. Maybe he has some kind of information we can use to close a few of these bastard places down. Also, put a watch on Darkholme's place. Based on what Marie's told me about her dealings with this copycat, I think Darkholme may be the Morrigan Murderer."

He just about kept his jaw from hanging slack at the name. "_Murderer_?"

* * *

Charles's fingers flew over the keys. Darkholme ... Darkholme ... Darkholme ...

He stopped at the picture of a blue-skinned woman with fire-engine-red hair. It was a mug shot, but despite the surroundings she maintained the same smug expression he remembered so well.

_Now isn't this a time for old ghosts?_

Raven Darkholme had once been a contact, in the days prior to the Demon Division, when Charles could still walk and worked practically out of a briefcase as a PI. Never entirely sure of her motives or allegiance, Charles had nonetheless found her information truthful, and often useful. Her pigmentation had always intrigued him, but she'd never hung around long enough for him to question it.

Not that she would have answered had he got the chance. Raven kept her secrets close, and Charles had been too worried about losing such a brilliant link to the black markets to pry. Even when his spine was crushed on a case and he was rendered a not-quite-helpless cripple, he was loath to give her up. Enforced convalescence gave him the opportunity to hone those telepathic abilities he'd had since childhood.

Extrasensory perception was an accepted skill, much like good eyesight or an aptitude for mechanics. It walked a fine line between science and magick, some claiming it was the product of spells and sprcery of ages past, others claiming it was a natural part of man's evolution. Whatever the case, stuck in a hospital for many months, Charles had perfected his own talents, eventually turning them into a sort of replacement for his mobility. Where he couldn't go in the flesh, his mind took him instead.

Raven disliked telepathy. It was probably an offshoot of her inherently secretive nature. Charles lost contact with her when she severed it, and not before.

In the end, not long before the Demon Division was instigated, Raven had been picked up just outside of Reno carrying a suitcase full of dragons' teeth. Closer investigation had revealed them to be those of Hempe Dragons - a well known but difficult to find ingredient for the drug Lusive. In his time with the Division Charles had learned that Lusive was often used to quieten demons from the more uncharted hellish dimensions. Traders passed off these dangerous beasts as docile little things, either not knowing or not caring what happened to the buyers once it wore off.

Raven had been charged with illegal possession, but nothing else. She was an adept at cooling her trail, and no department had been able to pin anything else on her. However, after someone paid her bail she vanished from the radar, and Charles had not seen or heard of her since.

Until now, that is.

Now, here she was, turned up at an illegal auction-come-summoning-ring. The echoes were both disturbing and intriguing, since she seemed to have changed allegiances in the intervening years.

Charles clicked the image, printing it out onto the cheapest paper the budget had allowed. Then he wheeled through to the holding cells where Kurt Wagner had been moved. Those over Charles's head had insisted he be placed with the other miscreant demons and summoned beings until more conclusive evidence could be procured to say he should be kept elsewhere. The validity of the Demon Division had been called into question, and head office had gone with the ordinary cops' decision.

It figured.

It was nearly midnight when he got past security. A warder followed him down the aisle of cells for protection, swinging his enspelled truncheon with meaning. Some of the demons shrank back as they passed, the more active nocturnals shrieking angrily through the wards.

Kurt was curled up in the back of his cell, apparently asleep. However, Charles sensed more activity in his brain than slumber allowed. Gently, he tapped the bars.

One golden eye opened. "Hallo, mein Herr."

"Kurt," Charles said quietly, "I need you to answer a few more questions."

"Do I have to move again?" He rubbed at his arm, and Charles caught the fleeting memory of rough hands bundling him into the cell, even though he had given them no resistance.

He'd have to have words with the warder about that afterwards.

_This is off the record._

Kurt blinked. Then, warily, he nodded.

Charles projected the image of Raven into his mind. _Do you recognise this woman?_

The ring Moira had uncovered was near to – and had ties with – Winzeldorf, which had featured heavily in Kurt's memories. Perhaps there was a link between Raven's presence there and what was turning out to be a string of abductions of humans with the poor, inexplicable misfortune of demonic attributes.

Charles still couldn't understand how these normal people had come to possess such devilish facets. Marie was a known quantity to him – being a resident of the research centre run by Moira's husband Sean. It had been an interesting case, but confined to the realms of mystery. How could a girl who had never shown any signs of demonic indulgence suddenly come into possession of succubus abilities?

Now, Moira had informed him – a little post-need, perhaps – that Sean had found another case. A young girl who had never so much as whiffed a werewolf, let alone been bitten by one, suddenly being able to shift form into that of a lupine. Sean and Moira had fostered her, only to have both their new daughter and Marie kidnapped from the small Scottish island on which Sean's Spiritual and Inter-Dimensional Research Centre resided.

And then there was Kurt Wagner, a boy with a pure human soul but who carried the appearance of a demon.

Charles was beginning to wonder exactly what was going on here. But since he had only one option to venture into, that was as far as he could go until Moira and the away team brought Marie in for official questioning.

He felt Kurt processing the image of Raven. Then he heard the reply.

_Nein. I have never seen her before in my life. Why?_

Xavier felt Kurt's confusion and honesty. _We think she might somehow be linked to the demon-trading ring that shipped you to America. _

_I never saw her. I'm sorry. _Memories flickered through his consciousness. Stefan and the knife, the smell of madness on him, his lights gone wrong ... blood. Screams. Trying to escape and failing. The man in the sunglasses ...

_Tell me_, 'said' Xavier, interrupting the flow of thoughts, _were you **always** as we see you now? _

_Ja. All my life. Mama and Papa thought I might be one of the Mythic-folk, but - __  
_

_Mythic-folk?__  
_

Memories. Andrei the Centaur. Running afoul of a nest of faeries and suffering the worst of luck until he paid them off with a large bowl of milk. The Whisp boy, Rainer Kirsch - with whom he shared a school - and the field trip that revealed that Rainer really did glow in the dark, just like the stories said. Peeping though cracks in the side of the tavern to stare at the Count's own uncle 'Elfhand' VonReissig, and listening to the others repeat rumours of Elf blood in the Count's family.

The Schwartzwald was one of the few places on the planet where the Mythic-folk lived in peace. It was said that there was ancient magic in the mountains' bones, and that that very magic warped races of people into the Mythic-folk that still lived there.

They were as natural as breathing to Kurt Wagner.

And it certainly explained a great deal to Xavier.

_Show me your memories of the cage_, he 'said'.

Heavy, thick, distorting metal. It made the lights hard to see. It made it hard to tell which way was which. Made him _clumsy_. But it wasn't _just_ iron. He'd been near Andrei's shoes often enough, and _they _were iron. This was different. There was something ... else in these.

A man, the same man who ordered he be bundled into a vehicle, "For more profit than this town could dream of," as he'd said ... he laid a hand on the metal and ... and _made_ it heavy. A man with white hair and aristocratic features. A man with a way of walking like he owned the very Earth itself.

_He had bright lights like you do, _'said' Kurt.

Charles shook his head. Yet another old ghost.

"Erik Lenscherr, how far you've fallen."

He remembered Erik, who had the power to control magnetic fields. When Charles was younger there had been speculation about Erik's skill, but eventually it had been declared as some specialised form of telekinesis. He could certainly make a good living, turning poor quality ores into real demon prisons – but what was he doing mixed up in this shady business? He'd have made a good living through the legitimate rings, or even making holdng cells for places like Muir or The Demon Division – maybe even those aristocrats who still hunted imps and kitsunes on horseback.

"So it was the heavy iron?" Charles said, forgetting to speak directly into Kurt's mind to avoid the guard's interest.

"Jawohl. The wards were nothing."

That was even more confusing. Though Erik could restrain demons in his special prisons, treated iron shouldn't have stopped a human in the way Kurt described. Yet the demon ring would have managed to hold a part demon. He poked a little, not realising he was doing it. What had happened to the cage? Had his buyer, the man he'd killed, bought that, too? Had he disposed of it, since it hadn't been found at his apartment?

Then he was dragged down into the darkness as Kurt's suppressed memories of captivity came flooding out.

* * *

Jean jogged along the corridor, cursing under her breath. She nearly fell over at the intersection, scrabbling at the wall to turn.

A guard was stationed outside the Infirmary. He was cold and austere, but stood aside when she flashed her ID. She heard the click of boots as she passed, and wondered whether he'd been part of the army recruitment scheme.

The NYPD: DD sickbay was one of a kind – and not just because Police departments rarely had sickbays. Just slightly larger than the average office, it was equipped to deal with almost every known demonic injury, from Succubus drain to vampire bite, with a little general medicine thrown in on the side.

An impossibly small figure lay in the only bed. The blinking digital clock on the far wall read 1:30am. By his side was a dark-skinned woman with startling white hair. She was stroking his hand, and looked up when Jean barged in.

Jean paused, trying to shrug her jacket onto her other shoulder without using her hands. The woman had good shielding, but not enough to hold back the simmering concern that was suddenly engulfed by a sheet of suspicion, and then recognition. Her mind sparkled like a sapphire.

"Jean Grey. Correct?"

"Uh …"

"Charles mentioned you in his letters. It's not every day you meet a combination teep and teek." She extended one elegant hand. "I'm Ororo Munroe. He and I go way back."

Jean sensed truth in the statement and took the hand. She nearly pulled away again when Ororo drew in a sharp breath.

"Sorry. I wasn't concentrating." She blinked, and her eyes refocused. "You were asleep before you came here? That desk will put a crick in your neck if you fall asleep across it one more time."

Jean blinked, a few memories of conversations with Charles clicking into place. "You're the psychomatrist."

"I am." She smiled weakly, but it was still shining. "And you're the protégé."

Jean didn't know quite how to respond to that, so instead she inclined her head at the bed. "How is he? The message on my beeper was pretty garbled."

Ororo's expression turned grim. "He went down to talk to the demon who isn't really a demon."

"The Wagner boy?"

"You know about – never mind. Of course you're working the case if Charles is." She shook her head, rubbing at her temples. "The warder doesn't know what happened. One moment they were staring at each other, a few nonsensical words were exchanged, then the next the boy was screaming and Charles had collapsed. They had to put tranquillisers in him."

"Who, Charles?" Alarm flared in Jean, hot and vaguely vengeful.

"No, Kurt. The boy. I went down to read the cell while he was out and they brought Charles up here. All I could get from it was the fact that they were communicating telepathically. Nothing about what the conversation was about." She sighed. "I hate telepathy for that. My abilities count for nothing when I'm reading it. I know it's gone on, but not what was _said_."

They were tugged from their dialogue by a groan from the bed. Instantly, both fell to Charles's side as he tried to pull himself upright.

"Lie back, you silly beggar," Ororo chided, pushing his chest back down.

"Charles, what was it? What did you see?" Jean looked at him fervently, resisting the urge to try and skim his mind for the information. Head-hopping was a nasty habit, and one Charles has warned her against since she started working with him.

In answer, Charles looked at her through bleary eyes and said simply, "Fur covers scars far too well. You can never tell how many there are. Or how much they hurt when they were made."

* * *

_To Be Continued …_

* * *


	6. Where Angels Fear to Tread

* * *

**6. Where Angels Fear to Tread**

* * *

The plaque on the door read Madame Prisma's, but everyone knew her as Ma Nelson. When men came to the door, they invariably asked after the second title. Her establishment wasn't invitation only, but it survived on word of mouth. If women called, they tended to ask for Madame Prisma, even if they knew better. For some reason they seemed to prefer that name – sort of a throwback to days of Ladies, Lords and the recapturing of courtliness. That is, until they met their hostess and realised how she got the nickname.

Ma Nelson was a tiny, wizened woman who might have been any age between thirty and sixty. A legendary beauty in her youth, her milky skin was now dark brown and crinkled like worn leather; her eyebrows like two worms that had died upon her brow and grown mould. She had an incipient moustache on her upper lip and a dusting of tri-coloured hair – white-grey at the roots, darker grey in between and burnt with henna at the tips. The shoulders of her skimpy, decent black dress usually held a threadbare stole – fox fur, she claimed. A present from one of her suitors, lost to the war in times long past. She never called it anything but 'the war', and refused to specify which one when asked. She had a brisk air about her, and one snapping grey eye that was not the least bit rheumy. The other had been put out by a sailor with a broken bottle, long before half her girls were born, and was the reason she had adopted the name 'Nelson'. She liked to wear a black patch over it, uncovering the hideous scar to frighten children trying to peep in the windows.

There was ex-whore written all over her.

In some ways, she relished this. She liked to make herself a paradox of sorts – a dichotomy of images. She was part highbrow lady, part barroom brawler, and part fastidious manager. She was quick and sharp, with wits you could cut your finger on and looks she hid behind when she brought out her cane and went into her Old Lady Shuffle. Very little got past Ma Nelson. What did was stepped on with a polished boot heel before it got too far.

Her brothel was the finest for hundreds of miles. It was already well established when she got off the boat in America from London, she having started her career there as a young, impressionable girl. The original owner had taken her under her wing, teaching her the trade and how not to be hoodwinked. She seemed to recognise in the skinny little adolescent an insightful seed, and when the clientele had gone home to their spouses and children, or to their empty apartments, she let her sit in the drawing room and watch as she totalled the takings and took care of finances. As such, Ma Nelson grew up with a mind full of business expertise and the experience to back it up. Nobody was surprised when she 'bought the book' and took over the establishment. It was like she'd been born to do it.

At Madame Prisma's, the girls were happy and the customers were satisfied. There was no violence, no questions, no prying into the whys and wherewithal of attendance. The prices were fixed, and there was a tacit agreement never to quibble them. If you did, you were not meant to be there. If you complied with the rules, you found yourself privy to a small slice of heaven with Ma Nelson's girls.

The girls themselves were fairly content. Ma Nelson never took on a waif who had a good home to go to, but would never turn away one in need of a warm bed and a good meal. She made enough to be generous. Those who stayed were well-kept, well-fed and well-looked after, with medical assistance when they needed it. In her lifetime, Ma Nelson had somehow managed to squeeze in training as both medic and midwife, and if confronted with anything beyond her knowledge, she would take them to hospital in her battered old 1956 Belvedere GTX.

The house itself was an old one. Nobody was quite sure, but common reckoning put it at around a century or so. It was kept respectable, with a convoy of girls in overalls painting the frontage every Spring when the weather turned warm. Tucked away just off the edge of town, nobody much bothered about it and what went on there. For all her faults, Ma Nelson was a good neighbour. Business was conducted in a string of basements, or in soundproofed rooms. The only spaces not soundproofed were the attic, which held the girls' private dormitory, and the drawing room on the ground floor, which she had partitioned a decade ago into an office and her own bedroom.

It was in this space that the girls now gathered. There were five of them, all told – an average turnover for Madame Prisma's. They crowded around the door to Ma Nelson's bedroom, shoving and jostling. The clientele had gone, and the girls' working gear had been stashed in closets and drawers in exchange for baggy pants, sweatshirts and scrunchies. To look at them, one might assume they were a collection of granddaughters, peering into their grandmother's room to see her putting on her rouge.

In actual fact, they were crowding for a look at their fallen angel.

He had come to them that evening. Taryn had been 'entertaining' on the veranda, in preparation for taking a familiar client to the equipment room for the hangman's hood that he preferred. She had shown him in, only to realise she had left outside the habitually brought gift – a small trinket of modest value, given to make the situation feel more like a date, despite what followed. When fetching it, she had seen the angel lying where he had fallen. He was bare-chested and facedown underneath the oak tree, apparently where he had tumbled through the branches. A lot of them were bent or snapped, hanging at odd angles and exposing the white flesh beneath the bark. Crumpled around him had been a pair of the most magnificent white wings, sticky with seeping blood and dirt.

Ma Nelson had not said a word. She had simply brought him inside with help from Amanda and Callisto, the only two girls without patrons. Then she had locked herself away to clean him up, trusting the rest to take care of business with the minimum of fuss.

There was a gap between the wood panels of the door. The girls clustered, trying to see through it. As one, they drew back when it opened and a familiar snapping grey eye appeared.

"You gells wanna see Fevvers?" Ma Nelson's voice leaked from her mouth, a molasses of London Cockney and unplaceable American drawl. It was an accent that had fooled many people into thinking her a few sticks short of a bundle, and she had raked in the money because of it. Nobody took advantage of Ma Nelson.

A mishmash of exchanged looks. It was Amara, the youngest at sixteen, who asked, "Fevvers?"

"You know – fevvers." Ma Nelson spiralled a hand at the wrist. "Wot birds use t'fly wiv. On wings. Fevvers."

"Oh. Feathers." Nods of understanding all round. "Um, yes please?"

They swarmed like locusts, but somehow knew not to cross the threshold. The room was Ma Nelson's domain. She nodded at them before returning to her seat.

There was a peculiar aroma to the bedroom. The smell of soap underlay the hot, solid composite of perfume, sweat, make-up and raw, leaking memory that made you feel you breathed the air in lumps. If you inhaled deeply you could taste water mixed in with it, coming from the bucket of filthy brown-red liquid that had been clean when it was brought in.

The young man lay on his stomach on the bed; face turned to one side so the blood could be cleaned from his nose and lip. The girls could see the back of his head, which was covered in a thatch of tousled blonde hair. His skin was pale, but not so much that bespoke a life spent entirely indoors, and there were ripples of muscle beneath. The magnificent wings had been folded back to lie along his spine. Having finished cleaning his skin and left wing, Ma Nelson had begun work on the right. She sat opposite the door, head bowed as if over her cash box.

Trailing down from his shoulder blades were two barely healed wounds, and nobody had to ask to know that these were where those splendid wings had burst through his flesh. They could not explain how such large things had fit in there, how they had not shattered his rib cage when they burst out, or even how they knew that was their origin. They just knew, and not one of them thought to question it.

"He's … beautiful," Dani, an expatriate from a Native-American reservation, whispered reverently.

"Why's he here?" demanded Callisto, the eldest, and the one who had been there longest. She had adopted a sort-of older sister routine around the other girls, but her bad temper made her irascible and quick to judge. She disliked the fallen man the instant the thought of his beauty entered her brain. "He's not human."

Ma Nelson fixed her good eye on the woman. "Ain't yuman?"

"Am I the only one who sees the wings?"

"Don't make him not yuman." She went back to her work, carefully separating each long feather so as not to damage it, and cleaning the old blood away. Blood from when they had appeared, most likely. Blood from those two horrible wounds on his back.

Taryn watched with fascination and just a hint of revulsion. "He … looks kinda human," she admitted. "Apart from the wings."

"A lot of demons look like humans," Callisto shot back. "We should call someone. The police."

"And say what?" Amanda frowned. "Please Mister Policeman, we found an angel in our backyard. Could you lock him in a cell for us, please."

"The Demon Division, idiot."

"Who are in New York." Amanda gestured around. "Does this look like New York to you? 'Cause it sure looks like the rear end of Kentucky to me. It'd take them _ages_ to get around to anything _we_ report."

Callisto's eyes glittered. "And you'd know all about rear ends, wouldn't you?"

"Gells." Ma Nelson's voice cut through the impending catfight. "I say Fevvers 'ere is stayin' 'til we can figger out who an' wot 'ee is. 'Less I hear different, we assume 'ee dun' mean us no 'arm. Savvy?"

Amanda looked at her feet, but Callisto tipped her chin slightly.

"Savvy, Callie?"

A curt nod. "Savvy."

The man groaned.

The girls shifted away from the door. Amara hid behind Callisto, and everyone pretended not to notice when Callisto laid a reassuring hand on her head.

The stranger turned to face them, blinking eyes bluer than cornflowers. The lamps in the bedroom had been turned down low, and his pupils had grown fat on the darkness – so large that the entire room and everything in it could have vanished without trace inside those compelling voids. Those girls brave enough to look at them felt the strangest sensation. It was as if the eyes on this strange, winged man were a pair of Chinese boxes; as if each one opened into a world into a world into a world, and the inspeculable depths exercised the strongest attraction, so that they felt themselves trembling, as if they, too, were stood on some unknown threshold.

He spoke, breaking the hold. "Wh'r mai?" His words were slurred, his voice scratchy.

"Safe," said Ma Nelson.

He tried to get up, cried out, and fell back down again. His hands snaked behind him, feeling the wings. "No," he whispered, touching them. "No, no, no…" Then, silently, he began to cry.

The girls stared. They were used to seeing men cry. Sometimes clients would shed tears of happiness, joy, or even pain when they requested the whips and other sadistic and masochistic paraphernalia. Yet they had never seen such unmitigated, quiet sorrow before – not within these walls. This was the crying of grief.

They began to edge away, one by one slipping towards the door out of the drawing room. Amara went first, clutching at Callisto's hand and dragging her wary eyes behind. Amanda followed, and then Dani, who paused.

"Taryn?"

"In a minute." Taryn waved at her. Dani left with a backward glance, but Taryn waited, unable to tear herself away.

Ma Nelson went on washing the wings, seemingly indifferent to the man's weeping. His chest shuddered, sometimes with sobs, sometimes in pain when she touched a sore spot. Eventually the two balanced, and he pressed his face into the pillow and lay quite still, as if he had died.

Taryn wanted to step forward, but there was still a barrier across the doorway. She stayed where she was, dressed in shorts, tee shirt and bare feet, so that when Ma Nelson got up she started and caught her heel on a protruding floorboard. "Ow!"

The man shivered slightly. One blue eye came into view. He raised his face enough to look at her. "Where am I?"

"Um…" Taryn didn't know how to answer. After all, they didn't know this guy, and not everyone was as accepting as their neighbours. "Uh…"

He cut her off, and it was clear he hadn't really wanted an answer. "Why am I still alive?"

Taryn could think of nothing to say, so Ma Nelson stepped up to the plate. "'Cuz y'ain't done on this Earth, yet."

He held Taryn's eyes for a second, and then let his face flop back into the pillow. He had the look of a man defeated, and all at once Taryn knew that he was no threat to them. He could have broken them to pieces with those wings of his, but he wouldn't. There was no heart in him to do it – no soul, even. He had possessed one, that much she somehow knew. He was no demon. He just seemed to have mislaid it somewhere, and all that remained was this empty, hollow shell with its searching blue eyes and all too human hurts.

Quietly, she slipped away to bed.

* * *

There were very few things more disturbing than occupying a cell next to a vampire. Especially a vampire who was in for blood theft.

"I can smell you, human," hissed the creature. He was half-blind from crucifix exposure, and, thanks to Kurt's rosary, he wasn't healing any quicker. "I hear you muttering to your God ... making your soul and your blood pure..." He felt his way to the bars and pushed against the wards. "Making me _hungry_..." He sniffed deeply and noisily swallowed drool. "Just a little sup ... soul-strong noble-blood child ... you smell so delicious..."

Kurt edged as far away as he could, extremely glad that his faith acted as a completely different ward against these creatures. Most of them didn't want to be near him when he was praying, but this vampire was a little weird. Being arrested so roughly had made him crazed, and hunger wasn't helping.

At least, Kurt thought gratefully, if he focussed on the Now, he didn't dip back into the Then.

It was the vampire who'd startled him from his nightmare of a past by tugging on some of his hair. It had fallen through the wards and the vampire was trying to use it to pull the rest of Kurt through. In a way, he had to thank the creature.

In another way, he'd rather be somewhere - _anywhere _- else. And thinking of any_thing_ else other than _those_ memories.

"Go away," rasped Kurt. "Bitte," he added, hoping it might just help.

It didn't.

"Please!" wheezed the vampire, slender, almost serpentine body swaying. "Please, just one small sip, just the smallest of snacks…" He panted, tongue drooping from his mouth.

The fangs reminded Kurt of his own pronounced canines. It was hardly what he needed for his self-image right now.

"Please," howled the blood-sucker. "I'm so hungry!"

"Leave me be!"

"A goodly man, a godly man would give me a sip. Are you godly, young sir? Are you pure and good and sweet and oh so tasty…?"

Kurt put his hands over his ears. "Shut up!"

"How can I continue without a small morsel? Are you that much of a monster that you would - "

"_Klappe_!" Before he truly knew what he was doing, Kurt threw something at the vamp in a fit of frustrated rage. It was the only he had to hand – his rosary and crucifix.

The vampire dived out of the way as the beaded ornamentation flew past. He hissed, and then grinned. "Silly little boy," he giggled. "Thrown away your little trinkets. How will you worship now? Who will help you now? Not God. No, no, not that one…"

Kurt bit back a growl, though mortification rose in his chest.

"Maybe I'll give them back to you," the vamp continued, voice a steady, sickly rasp, "if you give me something to bite upon..."

Kurt tried to block the voice out, wondering what he could do to get his rosary back. It hadn't gone far. It was only a little way into the vampire's cell. Too far for his hands or even feet to reach through the bars, but maybe his tail...

Slowly, hoping that the creature of the night was as blind as he seemed, Kurt inched closer to the partition, moving as quietly as he could. The vampire seemed oblivious to his nearing presence. He was still whispering and crooning to himself, hugging his own torso and mumbling about AB-types tasting better than O-positive. Kurt slipped his tail through the cage and past the warding sigils that would have stopped an actual demon, inching it out just … a little … further...

Slowly ... slowly ... just a few more inches … and...

He had it! He hooked the rosary around the spaded tip of his tail and was just withdrawing it when the vampire, with astonishing speed, leaped at him. The creature snatched up his tail and, before Kurt could even think about doing anything, had sunk his teeth in.

Kurt howled in agony. His tail was one of the most sensitive parts of his body. Being stepped on was akin to a kick in the gonads, so having someone bite into it and suck the blood right out was not pleasant, to say the least.

Acting in desperation, he brought his three-fingered fist forward, through the bars, and thumped the vampire hard in the head. The creature, weak anyway from lack of feeding, let go of the tail and yelped. Kurt took the opportunity to back peddle himself, moving into the other corner of the cell, as far away from the crazed vampire as he could get. He clutched his wounded tail, tending it as best he could even though the pain was dreadful. Drops of thick blood dripped onto the floor as he sat, cradling his injuries and sobbing ruefully.

He began counting 'Hail Marys'.

* * *

"There's been another disturbance in the holding cells."

"Fuck! That fucking _vampire_! I'm dousing the bars in holy water – in fact, fuck that, I'm mopping the floors with it."

Duncan tromped down to the cells, where the blue, fuzzy demon-thing was curled up and apparently bleeding, and the bald vampire with the big ears was trying to use hypnosis to get a meal.

"Come to me, child ... I've tasted your blood, I can ease into you mind. Come to me ... give me a drink..."

"Hor auf!"

"Shut the fuck up," drawled Duncan in a language the creature could understand. He brandished a cross and made the vampire recoil. "You want me to put holy icons in this cell? Do ya?"

"But I'm hungry, and the child smells so sweet..."

"You're going cold bat until someone decides to donate some blood for you. It's not as if it could kill you." Duncan next faced the demon. "What happened to you?"

"He bit my tail ... I-I-I was trying to get my beads back."

Duncan rolled his eyes and threw the kid a small vial from his belt. "Treat the wound with this. Pisses 'em right off."

"Holy water?"

"Ahuh. Helps healing _and_ repulses vamps."

"Dankeschön, Herr."

* * *

Moira considered the two people across from her in the helicopter. It definitely didn't help that the older of the two men was using the younger one's hindquarters for a footrest.

_I'm actually face-to-face with a Centaur. Crivens!__  
_

The stripling Centaur - and it was painfully hard to believe that a _stripling_ was beginning to make his way past six feet in height - was looking green around the gills. He'd never flown before.

"Saltine?" She offered one. "Helps settle the stomach."

"I just want to get _off_ this heathen contraption," he said. Like all big people, he was softly spoken. Moira had to lip-read more than once.

"Can't be now," said Bothari. "It's a long way down."

"Ja. That's what has me shivering." The Centaur's hindquarters shuddered as if plagued by flies. "How can something this big be held up by four thin little blades? It isn't right..."

Lots of things weren't right by Centaur standards, including Moira's own taste for slacks. But, apparently, it was better than letting people see her ankles.Lord help 'im when he discovers miniskirts.

They touched down later, after several harried attempts at conversation and more long silences. Moira's grasp of German stretched to asking for directions and ordering at the Imbißstube, and while their English was far superior, the problem was finding topics to talk _about_. They were giving little away about why they'd been systematically taking down illegal auction rings, but she was piecing things together from slip-ups and the demand to be taken to Demon Division HQ.

The centaur stripling all but leaped from the 'copter, stretching his legs and flicking his tail with the sighs of one who loves terra firma. Bothari - for that was the name he had given her - followed at a more sedate pace. Moira disembarked last and flashed her badge at the waiting security personnel.

"'Copter 352 arrive okay?" she asked once she and the man apparently in charge had out-jargoned each other. Rogue had been escorted on a different carrier - one with more firepower than her own. Moira had made sure every inch of skin was covered that could be - including wraps of gauzy fabric around her face so that she looked like nothing less than an extra in some ninja B-movie - but had been ordered to accompany these two to the different airports and helibases until they reached HQ some sixteen hours later.

The man checked his watch. "Due in the next half hour."

"Can I wait for it?"

"Got orders you're to escort this, uh, centaur and his companion in for questioning. We'll see 352 in, Ms. MacTaggart."

Moira bit at the inside of her cheek, sighed, and trundled away with her cargo to a waiting black van.

* * *

"Na, _this_ is a lot better," the Centaur grinned. He currently occupied most of the footwell in the back of the van.

_The Division must've got these cheap off the ATF,_ Moira mused. She certainly recognized the provisions for troops ... except some of the budget had been diverted to some uniquely occult armour. Cold iron and magic sigils, combined with tubes along the corners - filled with pure white salt - made for an effective cage against most evil creatures. And if that looked like failing, the driver had a fast-reference edition to _Binding For Dummies_ close to hand.

Bothari was catnapping, his heels resting on the Centaur's hindquarters.

"I dinna believe I caught yer name, laddie," said Moira, addressing the stripling.

"Andrei. Guismann."

"Andrei," she whispered, fixing it in her mind. As if someone could forget a six-foot-tall burly young lad with a horse's rear end. "Are you an' Bothari on some kinda secret mission?"

"Not secret, dear lady," Bothari said without opening his eyes. "Just improbable."

"You would not believe us," said Andrei.

"Aye? Try me."

"I'm looking for my brother."

"I can believe that," she said.

"It gets tricky after that." Bothari favoured her with a rare grin.

"Always happens with us Impossible Brothers," said Andrei. "All I know is Kurti was captured by a demon smuggling ring. Bothari and I crossed paths thrice before we asked each other why."

"What would _demon_ smugglers want with a Centaur?"

"He ain't a Centaur," said Andrei.

"Eh?" Moira tried to puzzle it out. "Was he born deformed? Wi' different feet or somethin'?"

"I don't know," said Andrei. "I've not seen his birth-parents."

_Click. _"He's adopted, eh?"

"Ja. By the Wagners."

Moira made a face. "But you said your name's Guismann - "

Bothari laughed. "That's why they're so Impossible. Three boys, born a month apart, to different families."

"There _were_ three," Andrei said softly, lowering his eyes. "Stefan ... he died - just before Kurti vanished."

"M'lord believes that the two incidents are tied. Our missing landsman is the only witness ... and m'lord doesn't like that," Bothari rumbled.

"Your ... lord?" Moira was beginning to regret asking.

Andrei sighed as the van lurched from side to side. "Things get complicated up in the mountains."

* * *

The dormitory at Madame Prisma's was alive with chatter. Ma Nelson's girls crouched in the darkness, hunkering across beds and creaky floorboards to gather by torchlight around Callisto, who commanded a degree of respect surpassed only by Ma Nelson herself.

The topic of conversation was easy to deduce.

"Think he really is an angel?" whispered Taryn.

Callisto snorted. "Likely some demon casting a glamour."

"Don't be mean, Callie..."

"All I know is, _I'm_ keeping the salt shaker by my bed tonight." Amanda nodded decisively, hugging it close.

"Stupid." Dani threw a pillow at her. "That's only for vampires."

"Heaven help if you ever get caught in an Enclave." Callisto shook her head and proceeded to explain the properties of everyday salt against the forces of darkness.

Amanda held the shaker closer.

Amara rubbed at her eyes, but not with sleep. Callisto pried them away while the other went on talking of their strange visitor. "Headache again?"

Amara nodded. She'd never suffered from the heat before, but recently prolonged exposure to the Kentucky weather speciality had sparked a series of migraines that had got steadily worse. Sometimes she had to pass on clients to one of the other girls and retire to bed, others she just flopped down on the couch in the parlour and pressed teatowels filled with ice to her forehead.

Callisto laid a semi-comforting hand on the younger girl's scalp and massaged it a little. Amara rubbed again at her eyes, which seemed to be popping right from her skull, and buried her face in the soft cool of a pillow.

And the angel-talk went on long into the night.

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

_The plaque on the door read Madame Prisma's, but everyone knew her as Ma Nelson._

-- I've been reading Angela Carter's _Nights at the Circus _recently. It shows up a lot in this section. Ma Nelson was a minor, background noise character in it. Again, like Bothari, you don't have to have read that to understand this universe's version.

_Nobody was surprised when she 'bought the book' and took over the establishment._

-- Often in prostitution, common practise is that names of clients are kept in a ubiquitous 'little black book', and when a girl leaves the 'trade' she sells this book to another girl, often one without a client roll of her own.

There were very few things more disturbing than occupying a cell next to a vampire. Especially a vampire who was in for blood theft.

-- In this world, legalised vampires drink from registered donors (usually Goths) and those that take from non-donors would be taken in for theft. Illegal vampires are just staked without ceremony.

_"Helps healing **and **repulses vamps." _  
-- Because saltwater does that.

Moira's grasp of German stretched to asking for directions and ordering at the Imbißstube.

-- The letter that resembles a capital B here is pronounced 'ess-tset', so the word should read (phonetically) 'Im-bish-shtoo-buh', meaning 'snack food stand'.

"_All I know is, I'm keeping the salt shaker by my bed tonight."_

-- Because, as legend goes, if you present a vampire with a pile of salt or sand, he can't leave that spot until he's counted every individual grain.

_"Heaven help if you ever get caught in an Enclave."_

-- An Enclave is a place where many vampires live (a nest being somewhere they just sleep during the day). They are removed from normal society, usually to caves or seascapes, or other areas without a lot of woodland.


	7. Going Rogue

* * *

**7. Going Rogue**

* * *

Rogue stepped into the van like some well-guarded politician or celebrity. Armed guards flanked her every move. When she ate the prepacked food they gave her, beady eyes watched every bite. When she needed to use the bathroom halfway through the trip, they made her hold it until they had coordinated themselves enough to make sure the toilet seat wouldn't blow up when she sat down. Then they waited outside her stall until she flushed.

Had she not been where she'd been, or been through what she'd been through, she might have blushed at their attentions. However, Rogue had been bought and sold by people whose sole purpose was the sexual thrill of drain by a succubus. A little sup, and then pull away. A fondle here, a squeeze there - she'd been little more than an object in the months since she was kidnapped from Muir. And she'd seen such things, creatures beyond imagining and the spells used to restrain them in the mortal realm. She thought there was very little that could faze her now.

She didn't remember all that much about the actual kidnapping, but she tried to catalogue all she _did _recall everything on the way over to America. Moira had told her she'd probably be hauled in for questioning as soon as they arrived, and anything was better than trying to make conversation with the armed planks of wood around her.

She and Rahne had become friends so quickly after she arrived on the doorstep of the Research Centre, it was almost unbelievable. Like Rogue, Rahne was a girl who had shown no previous indication of magic, but suddenly found herself with the attributes of a lycanthrope - minus the telltale bite and blood-frenzy every full moon. Rogue was naturally a loner, but the puppyish pleasure Rahne showed for her company was endearing. It wore down her resolve until she realised that yes, she would indeed call the younger girl 'friend'.

The two of them often went for walks on the clifftop, Rahne teaching Rogue the names of hardy Scottish plants, Rogue teaching Rahne some Southern American slang. She could still remember the look on Sean's face when Rahne answered a question in fluent Southernisms. She'd been quite incomprehensible.

It had been one of these clifftop strolls when this whole mess began. Rogue closed her eyes, calling to mind every detail she could about that day. Yet all she could remember was a strange humming and sudden blackness. She didn't even know if Rahne had also been knocked out, because when she woke up it was three days later and she was back in the States, changing hands courtesy of an unscrupulous 'eccentricity' dealer, who hired her out until one too many bad rentals made her burden enough to be sold.

The van bumped. Rogue jerked her head up, realising it had flopped forward onto her chest. She looked around blearily. "What time is it?"

One of the guards told her. She'd been asleep for nearly three hours. They were half an hour from Demon Division HQ, provided the traffic wasn't bad.

Rogue scrunched up small and stared straight ahead the whole way.

* * *

The vampire bite still stung, but the holy water had made it feel better at least. Kurt almost didn't pay attention to the approaching guards until they opened his cell.

"Someone to see you," one said.

Kurt held fast to his rosary and stumbled out between them. He half-dreaded who would be there. Margali, who knew what happened to her son? Mama, there to weep and wail? Some 'owner' who would claim him as their property as the murdered man had?

Instead of any of those, it was a very familiar Centaur.

"[God, Kurti," Andrei breathed in German. "[What idiot put you in orange? You're clashing."

"[Barrel-foot..." Kurt breathed, and fell into his brother's arms. Hysteria made him weep.

Andrei wrapped him in a bear-hug. "[Na, na, Cheese-weight. There, now, lil' brother. You'll get me cryin' in a minute or more ... "

Duncan watched the two embrace with a sardonic eyebrow raised. He'd only gleaned a few bits of information on why this ... this frikkin' _centaur_ - and part of him marvelled that he could still be amazed by stuff like this after guarding perp cells - was allowed to come and see the fuzzball with the rosary and potential manslaughter charge.

Brothers? Well, there had been stranger things. He just wished he knew what they were saying.

Kurt buried his nose in Andrei's hair, skin and fur, inhaling the scent of him in case he never had chance to again. Tears wet it, making the smell stronger. Wet dog had nothing on wet horseflesh.

Andrei felt protruding bones through the hugging. He recognised the signs of malnutrition in Kurti's coat, and the sparks of desolation in his eyes. Had Astrid been here she would have prescribed a bath, some food, and a healthy dose of love to drive out that hunted, haunted look.

"[Kurti, Kurti, Kurti..." he said softly. "[What have they done to you?"

"[...'Dun matter..." Kurt wept, and clung to his brother like he might never let go.

And for a few minutes, Andrei said nothing, but let Kurti cry himself out onto his shirt.

* * *

"So you're _not _a succubus?"

"No."

"Have you ever come into contact with one before?"

"No."

"Have you ever known anyone to come into contact with one before?"

"No."

"And yet you seem to have somehow acquired the abilities of one - albeit without the 'off switch'. Correct?"

Rogue rolled her eyes. She'd been asked dozens of questions since they brought her to this drab, warded room in the heart of the Demon Division complex. All of them eventually came back to this. The interviewers didn't believe her when she told them she was human. They'd sent for a Sensitive to come check her out, and in the interim were pumping her for information on the demon auction ring, trying to make her story slip up.

"How could the seller who took you to that auction have mistaken you for a succubus if you so _clearly_ aren't one?"

"The hell should I know?" Rogue folded her arms. "I drain like one. I got the skin pigmentations of one. Compared to that, they don't care where the wings an' claws went. Or the bloodlust. Or the rest of the kit an' caboodle."

"So what you're saying is that they saw you for what they wanted, rather than what you actually were?"

Rogue saw the look that passed between the two men. It clearly said _glamour_.

She wanted to hit them.

Moira had been spirited away to see some guy called Xavier before Rogue arrived. Bad traffic ensured a crotchety bunch of interviewers, and a ladle of salt to each perception meant Rogue's claims of her humanity were once again falling on deaf ears.

_And these are supposed to be the good guys? Jeez, fetch the stake now. They can bring the matches._

"How long did you stay on Muir Island with Dr. Cassidy?"

"About six months. Maybe six an' a half."

"And in all that time they never figured out how you came to be the way you are?"

"No. They gave me a body stocking and tested me for magic an' stuff. Nothing came back that made any sense. By all rights, I shouldn't even _exist_!" Her stomach rumbled. "Can I have sumthin' to eat now? I'm hungry."

One man motioned to the other. He rose and went to the door.

"The record should show that Officer Maloney is going to go fetch some sustenance for the interviewee - "

Maloney opened the door. There was a woman on the other side, fist raised ready to knock. She blinked, and then flashed him a dazzling smile. "Hi there. I'm Ms. Munroe, the Psychomatrist. I'm here to test an interviewee's credibility?"

"Uh..."

A head topped with red hair poked over her shoulder. "Officer Grey," she said by way of greeting, and nodded at the exotic looking woman. "She's with me. We're the verification team."

* * *

Bothari flicked a nonexistent piece of lint from his sleeve.

"Let's start this again," Wanda said, tapping her pen against the table for emphasis. "Your name?"

"Bothari."

"Your _full_ name, please?"

"Bothari," said Bothari. "Mädchen, I have diplomatic immunity, so you have no legal right to hold me _or _the person I seek. You have no right to any more information than I choose to give you. The end."

These were the most words she'd heard from the man to date. Wanda drummed her fingers. "Never heard the saying, 'it's better to give than receive', huh?"

"Never really applied it."

She sighed. "I can't release our, ah, special guest without the proper paperwork, okay? And just writing down 'diplomatic immunity' isn't going to go very well with my boss, his boss, their boss, or the thousands of people currently examining us with a goddamn microscope, so I'm going to continue asking questions until I get some goddamn correct answers, okay?"

Bothari showed an emotion. He smirked. "As you will, officer."

"Your name?"

"Karl Gustav Bothari," he said. "The Count's Voice."

Wanda blinked. "Say what?"

"The Count's Voice," Bothari repeated. "A tradition that goes back many centuries, Mädchen. It's still around in the Schwartzwald because a lot of villages still don't have telephones."

Wanda stared at him. "You're _kidding_."

"Nope. M'lord the Count reigns over mountains that still have nomadic tribes wandering through them." He seemed proud of this. "Some even live in caves, but then, ours are very nice."

"Uhuh," deadpanned Wanda. "The Count whom of _where_, exactly?"

"M'lord Count Eric Marcus Werner Tobias VonReissig, dear lady. He, the Centaur, your 'special guest', and I all hail from Reissigboden, in the Schwartzwald."

"Never heard of it."

"Not surprised."

Wanda scribed this much down. "And your - mission?"

"M'lord takes it personally when people abduct his people for the purposes of sale and slavery. I'm conveyed by his Word to find one Kurt Ignatious Wagner and see him safe. Anything I can do to, ah, inhibit further problems of the like is merely a bonus."

"So all I have to do is show you that he's safe and you get to go home?" said Wanda, hopefully.

"No."

_Rats. _"Why?"

"Because obeying the letter of the law whilst ignoring the spirit is a blight on my honour." Bothari grinned at her. He had perfect teeth, but Wanda half-expected to see points. "And I plan on collecting my bonus."

Wanda began to feel like stabbing him with her pen.

* * *

Raven remembered the last time the resurrection had been attempted. She, Destiny, Margali and one other had faced down the summoner. They had succeeding in keeping the darkness at bay, but lost one of their dearest friends. This time she would not risk such a high price. This time she would not wait until the spells were in motion. She was wiser now, and if Destiny – Irene – wasn't as young as she used to be, then that was all the more reason to strike before the iron got hot. Having tangled with this kind of magick before, their path was clear. They had to find, rescue, and unite the six. Or, if all else failed, kill them to prevent hell unfolding on earth.

Rescue her little Michael.

How strange that sounded. She still wished she could have kept him, her little baby. But she couldn't, she knew; and she'd worked so _hard _to make sure he had a good life away from her, away from _Erik_ and his madness. It was painful and spiteful irony that had made him a part of this when she'd spent years making sure he was kept out of it. When the Vision hit Irene and she told Raven the identity of one of the Chosen, Raven hadn't bothered to excuse herself to cry. Irene was close enough to her that it didn't mater she saw her weaknesses.

But Raven was strong. She was resilient.

She'd be _damned _if Michael was the one she had to kill to keep the world safe.

So her plans had changed. No longer content to just find and unite the six, and so put her little Michael in danger, she resolved to kill the next Chosen they found. That way the safeguard would be enacted, the spells rendered useless, and the world would never even know it had been endangered.

So. _This _was the one that would die. Yes, these patterns were correct. They matched the Vision perfectly. This was the one of lupine claw.

Raven tracked her through the gun sight. A silver bullet – not that it needed to be silver, but this way, it would be taken as an attempt on a werewolf. No need for anyone to realise the true nature of her mission.

For a second she felt sorry for the poor girl, who had probably never asked to be involved in this. But then, fate rarely asked permission. She thought of Michael, and what might happen if she _didn't_ kill this other innocent.

Raven squeezed the trigger.

Thanks to the silencer, the shot didn't ring out.

* * *

Rahne cursed her instinctive need to change to wolf and run away when the lycan in the cage along suddenly dropped dead. Panic erupted in the crowd and keepers, with people milling about and running for the exits in fear of a sniper. Like they needed to worry? The lycan had a bullet-hole between her eyes – a perfect shot that had taken off the back of her head. The smell of gore made the wolf inside Rahne rumble to get free. She wasn't prey to the usual bloodlusts of a werewolf, but blood had an instant effect on _any _animal.

No, the sniper had hit its target. It was after a wolf – and, Rahne guessed, _she _had most likely been the intended target.

She'd always played into the keepers' belief she was a werewolf. It was easier than not. Silver or not, metal bars were hard to break out of, and there were _always _wards trained on her if she made a wrong move or singled herself out as different. She'd come to the conclusion that her best bet was to just go along with it. Nobody believed her when she claimed to be just can unlucky human, so she devoted herself to plans for escape. Get bought, play along, and escape when the opportunity presented itself.

Now those plans had been kyboshed.

Someone was trying to kill her.

It was just dumb luck the dealers had decided to market the other girl first and put her on the podium in Rahne's place. Like many lycans when you didn't know what to look for, they looked very alike in hybrid form. Even their fur colours matched. Had they been human, it was obvious they were different. The other girl was svelte and dark-haired, while Rahne was bony and redheaded. She was unkempt after all this time living as a werewolf, and peered out at the panic through a curtain of matted fringe.

The tattooed man was talking. He spoke softly, but Rahne could see nobody standing still long enough for him to talk to. Her improved hearing picked up his words. "So, you're involved. Thought you might be. Ah, yes, I was warned about you. Trying to stop the resurrection again, eh? But such brutal methods. I would've thought you'd keep those as a last resort. Not much of a gambler, are you, Darkholme? Except with _your_ life, of course."

A dealer jostled past, then stopped and gabbled something. At once, the eyes of the tattooed man became hard and his voice rose to a shout. "What do you mean she's dead? Yes, I heard the shot. It wasn't deflected? You unutterable idiots! You were supposed to ward the cage against attack! What in hell's name do I pay you for?" He marched over to the dead werewolf's cage to inspect the body.

Most of the dealers were preoccupied. In the melee, a bunch of keys had been left on the table near Rahne's cage. If she could just … reach them … without being spotted, and before they realised the dead girl wasn't her …

_Got 'em!_

Now to just rub out some of that pentagram on the lock. A werewolf would never be able to touch such a ward, but since she wasn't a full lycan it just burned the pad of her thumb a little. the continuous line interrupted, the magick flowed free and Rahne _felt _the binding spell drop away. It was like taking off a corset. Quickly, she slipped the key she'd seen her handler use into the lock.

Click.

It was now or never. The time for subtlety was over. The door opened and she leapt, pausing only to change fully into wolf form. She needed the speed, and hopefully she could lose herself in the crowd faster than a dirty, naked girl could – or at least defend herself better. Thank heavens silver didn't affect her. thank them even more nobody knew it didn't. The surprise that silver had not contained her would only give her a few seconds, but she would make the best of it.

To the guards Rahne seemed a whirling frenzy of teeth and claws that laid them low and was swiftly gone.

* * *

"Idiot. That's not mine. Mine was a redhead, and in much better condition than _that_. You were planning to swindle me by selling an inferior product on my behalf, weren't you? That's why you switched cages, _wasn't it?_" Mesmero menaced the unfortunate dealer, but turned at the sudden noise from another cage in the collection. Despite the lack of full moon or change-inducing wards commonly woven into the silver bars to show off werewolves at auctions like this, a russet-coloured wolf shot out of sight with its tail in the air. "Stop that escapee! I want it _alive_."

"It shifted. In _daylight_."

"All the more reason not to kill it. It's one of a kind. Quick, catch it you fools!"

* * *

_To Be Continued…_

* * *

_"Karl Gustav Bothari," he said. "The Count's Voice." _

-- I have mislaid my copy of _Warrior's Apprentice_, so I have no idea if that's correct.


	8. Any Port in a Storm

* * *

**8. Any Port in a Storm**

* * *

Taryn knocked nervously at the door and waited for an answer. Not that she really expected one. Usually she just pushed into the small room, awoke its lone occupant from whatever doze/slumber/coma he was currently lingering in, plopped a meal before him and left.

Fevvers was still with them, but they had learned little more about him. He was quiet and polite but very rarely spoke; he gave no name, no address, spoke of no family, friends or place of origin. It was as if he really _had _just dropped out of the sky, fresh-born and completely new to the world.

The day after he came to them, Ma Nelson determined it would be better if he had a room of his own to sleep in, so she cleared out one of the smaller, pokier rooms that previously been reserved for clients. Now, if any outsider asked, it was 'closed for redecoration'.

Fevvers interacted little except to accept food and to remark that he was 'okay'. This was, blatantly, a lie.

The wounds on his back were healing at a tremendous rate. The girls had never seen such a phenomenon outside the odd healer at the hospital. Yet his cheeks were almost always wet with tears, his skin pale and clammy from grief, and his eyes made dark by despair. Physically he was a picture of health - strange though it might be. Mentally he was a wreck.

Taryn had asked to be allowed to bring him his meals. Callisto looked at her funny, but Ma Nelson just shrugged. The angel was usually too wrapped up in his own private hell to give any greeting or make any conversation, but, as she pushed her way into the bedroom, tray in hand, she resolved to make more of an effort. It wasn't right that something so beautiful should look so pathetic.

"Fevvers?" she said, and watched as he raised his soggy head from the pillow.

It was strange to see the angelic man in such surroundings. The walls of the small room were painted red and black, broken only by the odd tableau of nude couples writhing in various sexual positions. The bed was a large four-poster with satin sheets and covers. It also had a pair of handcuffs on one bedpost.

"I brought you something to eat." She moved towards him and sat on the edge of the bed.

He couldn't sit up properly, so he levered himself into a kneeling position with his wings trailing over the side of the mattress. It wasn't the most comfortable, but it seemed the least painful. Then he took the tray from her hands and, slowly, began to eat.

Usually Taryn just gave him food and left, but now she watched him. It was a simple fry-up – the best Amanda could do when it was her turn to cook. Callisto did interesting things with herbs and spices, and Amara's cakes were the best any of them had ever tasted. Taryn wasn't very good in the kitchen, so she tended to be on dishwasher duty instead.

It was strange the way the angel poked and prodded the eggs carefully, before cutting them up into neat little squares like they were some strange delicacy. He held the knife and fork just right, the very picture of a young prince at a banquet. Not a lost, angelic waif in a brothel.

"Why are you still here?"

Taryn couldn't help but blink. He'd said something! His voice was soft and hoarse from lack of use, but he had _said _something.

"I ... I just wanted to stay with you. To keep you company," she replied. "Everyone needs company."

"Do the men come to you for company?"

The way he put an emphasis on the word 'company,' gave it extra meaning, Taryn resisted the urge to look away and, instead, drew herself up. He didn't know anything about her or her past. She would not be ashamed of who she was.

"Yes," she said primly. "What of it?"

"Are you a whore?" There was no accusation or derision in his voice; it was a mere question, like asking someone if they'd be going to the gig next Tuesday; or if they worked in the post office.

"I suppose you could call me that," said Taryn, a little offended. "Does that bother you?" Not a question she would usually ask. She'd long come to learn that the opinions of others on this mattered little. Some people would always have their prejudices and, no matter what people might think of her life, it'd saved her from starving. Still, there was something about this man ... perhaps his alien beauty, perhaps his deep, complex eyes, which made her ... care what his answer might be.

He shrugged, the feathers moving in perfect synchronicity on his back. "No. I suppose everyone's a whore, in their own way."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He fiddled with the bacon, trying to cut it, but the knife slid off the greasy meat and onto the plate making a horrible squeaking sound. He didn't look up from his task as he spoke to her. "I _mean_, we're all of something to someone else in return for something. When pushed to it, we'll offer our bodies in various ways. We just don't realize it. It doesn't matter though, not really." He missed the bacon again.

Taryn didn't know what to say to this, but the squeaking annoyed her.

"Here," she said, taking both plate and knife from him. Carefully, she cut the bacon up into neat strips. Grease pooled on the plate underneath them. His grip hadn't been hard enough on the knife, she guessed, so it had slipped everywhere.

She'd nearly finished slicing when she looked up and saw, to her astonishment, that he was looking at her – right _at _her. His blue eyes seemed to swallow her whole. She felt like he was suddenly _there_ in ways he wasn't before, except that was ridiculous. Absurd. Preposterous, like … like an ordinary man with wings and healing ability …

His eyes seemed to swallow _him_ whole too, containing all of him and yet ... nothing at all. She was trapped in their gaze, like a rabbit in headlights. She barely even noticed when he raised one hand and gently touched her cheek.

"Warm," he murmured softly, his voice filled with a strange, sad awe. "You're so warm. I'd forgotten what it was like to touch another person."

The signals were obvious. Her body screamed at her, her mind urged it on. _Get laid! _it yelled. _This guy's dying to get laid! Maybe it'd even do him good, bring him out of his funk. It's not healthy to be this down in the dumps. Plus he's gorgeous – come on, girl! Get jiggy with an angel! He wouldn't be the worst or strangest customer you've ever had, and he's a lot prettier than most. _

He could be a demon in disguise, her good sense reasoned. He could be anything. You've never seen anything like him before. What if he's dangerous?

Be he wasn't, she was certain. She knew it like she knew she could never go home again.

She almost brought her lips to his, just to see what happened. However, at the last moment she grabbed her own libido and stuffed in back in its box.

No. No, this was wrong! She couldn't do this. Not when he spoke like an old man and looked like a child. Not when his body promised such pleasures when his soul was in such pain. It was _wrong_.

She jumped up quickly, nearly spilling his meal from her lap. "I ... I've got to go," she stuttered. "I'll come back later and get the plate." With these words she scrambled out of the room, still feeling those strange eyes hot upon her back.

When she'd closed the door behind her she leant back against the wall and allowed a shiver to course though her spine. This precise emotion that caused this shudder even she didn't know.

* * *

Mesmero was a dervish of invectives and incantations. He swore in so many languages, Erik had ceased to distinguish between them. Instead, he scanned the crowd pulsing at edge of becoming a mob. Though less so when dealing with werewolves, breakouts were not uncommon at demon auctions. It was just important that the usual method of dealing with an escapee - killing it - did not occur now. This werewolf – _his_ werewolf, the one he'd tracked since stealing her and the succubus girl from the place Mesmero told him – needed to stay alive. It was imperative she did not die until after the ceremony.

_**There's a ruckus at the far end of the cages you might want to investigate**_.

Erik didn't turn or flinch. While he'd never be truly accustomed to it, he had learned not to react to the little white-haired boy who followed him wherever he went.

Mesmero was busy growling at one of the incompetent handlers from the Lycan Dealership. They'd thought that by putting their 'wolf in with a 'respected' dealer, there'd be less chance of ... well, something like this happening. It had been Mesmero's idea to get rid of her this way, and they'd agreed 'respectable' probably meant less chance of her being abused and killed out of their sight once she was sold. They had not figured on the handlers switching cages, nor on the assassination attempt.

In a way, it was lucky the dealers had tried to swindle them. Had their wolf been on the podium like she was supposed to, she would have been killed and everything would be ruined. However, _not _being on the podium had saved her life and meant she could make a viable escape attempt. Who could've known silver didn't affect her as much as she'd pretended?

Since his employer was busy, Erik answered the boy. His voice was low and gruff, muffled by the pulled-up collar of his coat, but the child heard it anyway.

_**I know because I don't want anybody to die here today. You might want to check on the skylight above that point. The wards don't keep everything out**_.

Erik's powers reached without conscious thought. They bumped against the wards, but sparkled against his inner-eye when they sensed metal. A steel alloy, to be precise. He recognised the contours of a rifle, and deftly closed the barrel and warped the trigger. It would never be fired again.

The metal dropped. He felt it fall. He even saw something grey plummet from the rafters of the waterfront warehouse, but the marksman was already gone through the skylight. Erik felt the wards slip back into place, whatever spell had been used to break them open now useless.

The crowd charged past. Erik stepped aside, grabbing Mesmero's arm so that he wasn't trampled mid-rant. The telepath didn't even pause in his shouting. Erik almost felt sorry for the dealer.

Almost.

_**Is that even physically possible? **_asked the white-haired boy. He only looked about six. Though his voice was high and flutey, his words were that of a much older person. He spoke as if he'd had time to grow up.

Erik didn't look at him. He knew that there would be time for that later. After all, he never left his side, not for anything. He had spent many nights with his eyes open, refusing sleep against the constant stare of that tiny, luminescent figure that only he could see.

The ghost had appeared to him six months ago, when he first got wind of Mesmero and sought him out. At first Erik had thought himself going insane, but eventually he had come to the conclusion that if that was going to happen then it would have happened long ago. He asked the boy why he was here, now, like this, and his reply had been cryptic.

_**Because you need **__**some**__** sort of guidance, and I drew the short straw.  
**_  
And so it had started. And so it went on. And so it would, eventually, end.

Erik cut his eyes at the milling people. "Do you see her anywhere?" he asked in that curious Russian dialect he had only ever spoken with a select few.

_**Your werewolf? **_the boy replied in the same dialect.

"Yes."

He didn't answer that. Erik didn't press him. Sometimes the silences could last days and weeks, sometimes only a few minutes, but he could never press to get an answer if one was not forthcoming. How did you threaten someone who was already dead?

_**The assassin's gone. I can't sense her anymore. **_

Erik nodded. He knew whoever it was would be back. Hopefully, by that time events would have been set in motion that could not be reversed, even by the death of a Chosen One.

"It won't be long now, Pietro."

The boy-ghost didn't reply.

* * *

Despite Rahne's escape she still had certain problems. To wit: She was naked. It wasn't customary to dress 'wolves that were for sale, and while she was half-shifted she'd had no problem since fur covered most of her modesty. Now, though, she was hiding under a clapped out old car, having run from the warehouse where the auction was being held.

So. She was naked, and would remain so unless she shifted to wolf or hybrid form. Hybrid screamed werewolf, so that was out, and though a wolf wouldn't look so out of place if she could get to some countryside, the wolf mind was panicky in this kind of situation. She already knew that much from making her escape. It felt threatened, anxious, and would act out of survival instinct – act, in short, like an _animal._

She didn't know where she was, so she had no idea where she should head, but at least she was out of that _place_. There was a river with boats on it outside her refuge – she could smell the bad water and petrol fumes – but they were all moored and probably involved with the auction. Bidders had to get here and sellers had to transport their wares.

The area was vaguely urban but ramshackle. The design scheme ran mostly to corrugated iron, burnt out wrecks and litter. It stank, too. Even in human form Rahne's senses were heightened enough that the smells around her were an assault on her nose.

Was there a town nearby? Which one? Could she find help there? What country was she even in anymore? She'd started in Scotland, then been shunted to America and passed around states she hadn't even known existed before, kept in a basement in a cage and fed well before being knocked out and taken somewhere new by the tattooed man and his pal.

She wished Rogue was here. Rogue would know what to do. She was canny and a survivalist.

But they'd taken Rogue, too. Rahne was sure of that. Her scent had been around when she first woke up, laden with fear and the burnt ozone of a binding spell.

Rahne was alone in a strange place. There were most likely people hunting her already, she had no idea what to do next, and she was naked.

Well, on a scale of one to ten, this certainly sucked.

She needed to be human, and she had no clothes. The one bad thing about working as a human was that you had to worry about things like that, and while being a female werewolf had its advantages (there were fewer questions at the appearance of a naked girl than a naked man, although there were also more propositions), shredding your clothes when you shifted was not one of them.

This was not a good start. If she found a police station, though, she could at least do _something_. The police always knew what to do. It was some great law of the universe: when in dire peril, thou shalt seek out the guy with the blue uniform and walky-talky for use in calling heavily armed back-up. So, plan of action? Town, then police.

But first, clothes.

She was overjoyed to be free at last. She didn't like being cooped up, and near-claustrophobia had warred with concern over Rogue and homesickness and just plain _sickness _over her whole ordeal. She was human. She wasn't used to being treated like a piece of meat destined for a butcher shop window. If she ever got home, she was going to join one of those agencies devoted to stamping out illegal auction rings –

Her line of thought was suddenly and painfully cut off, as a powerful binding spell activated and looped over her head and neck. She choked a little, grappled with the invisible bonds, and fell on her stomach. This scraped off several layers of skin, several more when her hands skidded out on front of her, but it was nothing compared to the burning around her throat.

Rahne had a few moments in which to curse whoever had hit her with the spell. Then the world went black.

* * *

"[Are they feeding you well?"

Kurt instantly recognized the regalia of the Count's Voice and saluted. "[Well enough, sir. I shouldn't complain."

"[Whatever he's getting, he needs more. Cheese-weight, you're thin as a stick," said Andrei, clip-clopping around to face the newcomer in the cell doorway. The man was tiny, built like sparrow with a growth hormone deficiency.

"[Nothing less than I deserve," Kurt murmured.

"Na?" said the Count's man. "[How's that?"

"[I ... I _killed_..." Those two words opened the flood. "[Oh God ... I killed Stefan ... and that man ... I killed them both ... God forgive me ..."

For a moment, both man and centaur were silent. Andrei looked over Kurt's head, expression a mixture of pained and pointed. "[I think," he said carefully, "[you'd better start at the beginning, Kurti."

For a second Kurt's face was a mask of sheer, unbridled terror. Then a cloud of brimstone appeared. When it cleared, he was gone.

Andrei hadn't realised his little brother was going to be this scared about whatever had put him here. He also hadn't realised Kurti could _do _that. He turned on the guard.

"[Teleportation?" mused Bothari. "[Interesting. You never mentioned that one."

"[Because I didn't _know._" Andrei switched to English for the guard."Quick, where can he go from here?"

"Whu?" The guard seemed flustered by the sight of an alarmed centaur bearing down on him.

"Are there any wards around this building?"

"Uh, hundreds. Inside and out. Demon Division headquarters – nearly as many as the Whitehouse. He can't – he _shouldn't _be able to disapparate through 'em. Especially the ones in the supporting walls. He'll fry himself."

"Hell. But he can stay inside?"

"I … I don't know. He shouldn't have been able to disapperate out of _here_. But I suppose so, if he can avoid the backlash. But no demon has ever done it before -"

"Then perhaps it is a good thing he is not a demon," said Bothari.

Andrei was already thundering out of the door.

* * *

Rogue screamed as a demon appeared in a cloud of smoke and brimstone in the interview room. She had no idea what was going on, so she covered her face and neck with her arms.

The two members of the Demon Division, however, decided with typical conclusion-jumping that she had summoned the foul creature now rolling off the table in agony.

The bundle of blue fur murmured something, and then trailed off in a round of what sounded like … _praying_?

Rogue looked at it, did a quick double-take, and sat with her mouth open. Blue fur, spaded tail … something in her memory chimed loudly.

"_Once, a long time ago, I gave birth to a beautiful boy. I was going to name him Michael. But he had what people consider a 'demonic' appearance – he was blue like me, and had my eyes, but some twist of fate also gave him fur and a spaded tail instead of my … abilities. He couldn't hide the way I do."_

Rogue cleared her throat. It was impossible. Completely impossible. And yet … _she _was impossible. And her life had been full of impossible coincidences lately, so why not this, too?

"Michael?" she tried.

The demon looked up. It had sharp white teeth and pointed ears. But it didn't attack her. "My name is not Michael," it corrected her. There were tears on its cheeks and in its bright yellow eyes. "Oh, Gott, what did I just do? What is _happening_ to me?"

Rogue just grabbed onto his arm before he could start sobbing again.

Which he did.

"You _are_ Michael," she whispered fiercely. "You're the little boy she gave away. You're the reason I was saved!"

* * *

_To Be Continued..._

* * *


End file.
